I immigrated very young...

Reflection on Marc Prensky’s articles:

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Do They Really Think Differently?

Engage Me or Enrage Me

I think I am a digital immigrant, but I came over when I was young, so I don’t think I have much of an accent. My family’s first computer was a Kaypro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaypro), which we purchased when I was a freshman in high school, though I wasn’t allowed to use it until I was a senior. I didn’t use a computer mouse until graduate school (yes, really). And yet, I have been teaching distance education for years, and am savvy enough to convert the articles assigned for this reflection to a format I could read on my ipod. I love that online access allows current events to be tracked in the classroom so closely. I’ve always tried to have at least three current news events linked to a chapter we are studying. Besides driving home the relevance of the topic under study, it usually broadens the student’s perspectives about what is in the news.

I admit the author’s first two and half articles put me off. “…they thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work…. But digital immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills…” Really? I have trouble swallowing that it is some new high tech shift that some people prefer instant gratification and frequent rewards. I suspect throughout time there have been students with just those preferences.

I’m not convinced by the argument that because five year olds could follow Sesame Street while playing with toys that high school students can effectively study just biology and literature while watching tv.

“We were led to the conclusion that the 5-year-olds in the toys group were attending quite strategically, distributing their attention between toy play and viewing so that they looked at what was for them the most informative part of the program. The strategy was so effective that the children could gain no more from increased attention.

For one thing, Sesame Street these days is geared towards children a couple years younger than five years, so I don’t think it is a good measure of distraction for that age. For another, I don’t know that really proves much about the attention spans of teens, whose brains are going through a lot of changes and growth.

I think the author is beating a dead horse. Sure, there are die-hard old school teachers out there who rule over quiet, controlled classrooms. But are those the target audience? Are they going to be reading and taking this to heart? Schools have been working on implementing best practices for a long time now. Where is this school with students only asking one question per ten hours? It isn’t the average classroom now.

So, I know, I can hear you “that isn’t really what he was saying…” Frankly, the first two articles and half of the third really were saying a lot of that. But at the end, the author finally comes to it, “creating engagement is not about those fancy, expensive graphics but rather about ideas…. “gameplay” trumps “eye-candy”. I’m on board with that. I think that is what we’ve been studying in best practices. I just wish he hadn’t spent so much time laying out a glorification of multi-tasking, bored kids. I think it doesn’t give enough credit to the kids and reads a bit too much like he’s selling computer games, which he is.