A Digital Immigrant in a Digital Native's World

Chloe's Construction Chloe is the latest and great holiday toy from Hasbro. She can dig, she can drive, she gets dirty. Sold in a set with an excavator, a dump truck, and tractor. Flagger sold separately.

Duolingo Duolingo is a program in which any person anywhere can learn a new language of their choosing at their own pace. With 23 languages offered, Duolingo creates language specific programs beginning with basic vocabulary words and building upon that information through each lesson. Each lesson contains speaking, listening, multiple choice, and translation pieces. Individuals can find out their exact answers and scores immediately. Duolingo keeps track of how many questions are answered correctly and incorrectly, and the individuals receives rewards as they learn. It can be used individually or set up for a classroom experience. The perks of Duolingo is that it is a website, and an available app on both Apple and Android products. Most importantly, it is free! This upcoming school year, I plan to attach it to my class website for parents to use to help them in learning either English or Spanish, whichever language they need assistance in. I hope that it no...

I am a certified Disney enthusiast. I have always have been and believe that I always will be. In fact, coming up on my 30 th birthday, I have asked for a DisneyParks Dooney and Burke wristlet. Being so in love with Disney, I am connected to animated children’s culture in and out of my kindergarten classroom. As a child, I was a young girl in love with every new Disney character and movie that was released. Each of my birthday parties was based on a different character beginning at the age of three. It began with Minnie Mouse, then Ariel from “The Little Mermaid”, then Belle from “Beauty and the Beast”. This continued with Cinderella from “Cinderella”, Mulan from “Mulan”, and so on. I first traveled to Walt Disney World in Florida with my parents at the age of five. We stayed at a resort on the property, the golf club based off Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. While it no longer exists today, I can still remember every part of it…the carved dwarfs in the trees, the brow...

What do you make of the (divergent) positions of Boyd and Prensky (per our discussion in class and/or per the article above?)  Where do you stand on the “digital native” terminology? As stated in my previous blog, I am a digital immigrant. Born in 1987, I believe that Prensky is incorrect in his statement that a digital native is born after 1980. Yet, I also do not agree with Boyd’s representation either that it is dangerous to assume that children and youth are automatically informed. The title of a digital native and a digital immigrant is not cut and dry. There are gray lines in these definitions and how the world views both groups. Boyd discusses how everyone has something to offer when it comes to technology. Technology is ever changing and we are all constant learners. I am in agreement with her statement that we are all constant learners, yet children today are born with different brains than those of times before. Research states that children are not the same as...

A digital native  is said to be an individual born after 1980. Someone who is unaware of the world that their parents, grandparents, and elders had grown up in. Marc Prensky  discusses digital natives and their brain structure in his 2001 article, stating how there are currently two cultures of people in the world. Much of these two cultures is developed from attitude and preference in learning. Digital immigrants  grew up in a pre-digital era. They are different learners who had to learn a second language of digital media literacy. In reading  Marc Prensky's article, I believe that a digital native is not a person born after 1980. I was born in 1987 , and at about to be 30 years of age, believe that I am a digital immigrant. I grew up in the age where yes, there was an Apple computer in our classroom, but we were learning to type and look at a keyboard. I remember Type to Learn  in library class where we had to find the letters to type. I remember when the hom...

My name is Allison Campbell. I teach Dual Language Kindergarten at Carl G. Lauro Elementary School in Providence. I have taught there for 5 years and enjoy every minute of the dual language program. I live in West Greenwich on a farm and am spending most of my summer at home. There is always a lot to do on a farm. Trips to the beach will be mixed in with that...hopefully lots of them! Other than that, I enjoy cooking and baking, hiking, and reading. I look very forward to reading a book for pleasure this summer.