After reading the Marc Prensky articles, I believe my initial reaction of disbelief to all of the statistics he poses, speaks loudly of my digital heritage. “Nuh-huh, his stats have to be waaaaay off; 200, 000 emails and only 5,000 hours of book reading!?! That can’t be right.” (2001, p. 1). But then I recalled my boyfriend’s ten-year old niece who has the same smart phone that he does, and who recently spent a family vacation texting for the better portion of the entire trip. Alright, so maybe I do need to reconsider the real difference between Digital Natives and myself, a Digital Immigrant.

Although I define myself as a Digital Immigrant, I have to recognize that I am in somewhat of a middle space between the land of the Natives and the Immigrants. I, like Shannon posted, “have never thought to send a URL to my roommates.” However, contrary to what Prensky states are the habits of Digital Immigrants, the Internet is the first thing I turn to when I am looking for information, and I rarely touch a manual for directions (2001, p. 2). I also strongly resonate with John’s post describing his sentiments when working with his father. I have often found myself in a similar situation with my own parents, impatient and annoyed by their need to go step-by-step, then usually having to ask me the same questions a couple of weeks later. As a result of these discrepancies between Prensky’s description of Immigrants and the reality of who I am and knowing many others like myself-Stephanie and Beau, in our class alone, I find myself wondering how much of Prensky’s viewpoints are broad generalizations?

Prensky’s articles are filled with sweeping statements such as, “Digital Natives [are] accustomed to the twitch-speed, multitasking, random-access, graphics first, active connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world” and implies that all students on the earth today are indeed Digital Natives (2001, p. 5). While his articles are backed with strong statistics and I do completely recognize the validity and importance of having technology in schools today, I do not swallow all of his Kool-Aid.

What about the students who are here, in Portland, Oregon? There are many parents in this city and others that are still encouraging their children to be “hands-on, minds-on learners”. As opposed to having kids open their mouths and pouring education-games down their throats in a manner that’s palatable to the kid’s who are part of what I believe is a “couch-potato” culture. To me Prensky’s facts represent a primarily urban and high SES demographic. I guess that shows my strong personal bias and places me squarely in the land of the Digital Immigrants. I can’t help but oppose Prensky’s viewpoint that it is only because education games thus far have been “badly designed” that they’ve failed (2001, p. 5). I think they’ve failed because they are not the most effective way to teach.

However, for all my differences with Prensky, I do believe he has hit the nail on the head when he says that we have a problem with kids being bored in school. To my mind, the action then calls for teachers to creatively find ways to develop their students’ curiosity, to find unique ways to light up the parts of the brain that have been dulled by sitting in front of the T.V. and computer for too long. Take a biology class for example, to combat boredom a teacher could arrange for a large portion of the class to be held outside, working in a stream, or working directly with live animals. If part of the creative solution includes technology, that’s fine, but I do not think we need technology to be the center of our educational universe.

I strongly agree with Michael’s compelling statement that franticly rushing to instantly gratify and entertain children “would [only] create a world of selfish, impatient, and petulant people”. These articles were very thought provoking to me because they mined some huge societal issues far beyond technology in schools; for me the main problem that underlies all of the articles is the issue of how some children are being raised in our current generations. I see their boredom, impatience, and expectation for constant entertainment as the real problem, one that we should try to tackle with honest explanations, not just slap a technological Band-Aid on and call it good.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On The Horizon (Vol. 9, No. 5).

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants: part II: do they really think differently? On The Horizon (Vol. 9, No. 6).

Prensky, M. Engage me or enrage me: what today's learners demand. Educause Sep. 2005: 60- 64.