Digital Natives

This article was very interesting. Part one discussed the two types of digital users; digital immigrants and digital natives. Digital immigrants are those of the baby boomer generations; those who did not grow up with the technology that we have today. The teachers who are digital immigrants find it difficult to teach to the digital natives for the immigrants speak in a different language than that of the natives. Digital Natives are those who grew up with technology surrounding their everyday existence. These students find school boring due to the intensity and fast-speed of the technology era. However, the digital immigrant natives need to some how fuse digital technology into the classroom in order to reach the students. Using digital media will help engage students and will increase the students' desire to learn.

Part 2 of the article explained how everything psychologist and neurobiologist believed about the brain is changing due to the explosion of technology. Particular areas of the brain find stimulation when a child engages in video games or technology. Researchers have now concluded that people of different cultures have a different way of thinking. This was not thought to be the case years ago. Social-pyschologists are trying to understand the brain pattern and structure of the digital natives. The article states that many social-psychologist believe that the structure of the digital natives is definitely different than that of the immigrants. Many educators find that students' attention spans are a lot shorten than that of 20 years ago. However, students' have the ability to sit in front of a computer game for hours, so what gives? Teachers need to infuse technology in the classroom, less lecture, less step-by-step and more multi-tasking into their curriculum to keep students engaged and wanting to learn more.

Overall, this article was very helpful to me as a future educator. I like the authors use of digital natives and immigrants because I find everything that the article said about the two completely true when comparing myself and my father. I want to create a classroom environment that is enriched with technology and I want all of my students to be engaged.