endorsements and animals

Hello friends. My name is Michael Warncke.
I like bats. My endorsements are Art and Science.

Digital Overboard

In his article, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Marc Prensky brings up some valid concerns as to the ways the youth of today approach and exist in the world they live in. He attributes what he calls a "singularity" or fundamental change, to a rapid dissemination of digital technology that has taken place over the last two decades. He tells us that today's average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, yet have spent more than 10,000 hours playing video games, and even more than that watching TV (20,000 hours). He warns us that today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors which he dubs, "Digital Immigrants." These young people, our students today, he calls "Digital Natives," and he supposes that their brains have formed differently from the "Digital Immigrants" as a result of the digital media they were exposed to as they grew up.
Prensky cautions us that "Digital Immigrants" speak an outdated language and are struggling to teach a population that speaks and entirely new language. These "Digital Natives" are said to be "used to receiving their information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task." Even more humorous to me is that they prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite (didn't we all prefer the books with lots of pictures before we learned to get the real meaning out of reading?). He also says that they thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards.
Prensky points out a very real need for educators to be available to communicate with students on a more accessible level to their receptivity. He states that smart adult immigrants accept that they don't know about this digital native world and learn to have kids help them integrate while the not-so-smart immigrants just complain and reminisce. On this point I agree with the author. I think that it is important to learn to communicate with the youth on a level that seems different to the more mature and "older generation." However, I don't feel like we should pander to some irresponsible desire to have gratification at our fingertips and have everything be a contrived computer game. I will even agree that creating games to help people learn material can be valuable. I believe there should still be an understanding of our origins and the true value of the natural world. Technology is great and can be an awesome tool for learning, science, medicine, etc.. The outcome of catering to a desire for instant gratification and educating students to learn on a level that Prensky presents so urgently seems detrimental to me. I believe it would create a world of selfish, impatient, and petulant people. I agree that "Immigrants" should learn the language and be understanding of the differences in media available today. I do feel, however that an amount of slowing down is necessary for true knowledge and clear understanding of our world, it's processes, and inter-relationships. Perhaps that makes me a cave man but hey, I'm responding with my honest opinion.
Thanks for reading,
Michael Warncke

yes! first post

Shannon!
I love elephants! wahoo! I drove one once with my big toe
Social Studies is my endorsement

Digital Green Card

I consider myself to be a digital native. I was raised around electronics and watched (at times even helped) my dad and uncle build a few computers. My brother bought the original Nintendo when it came out, plus many of its successors; coupled with my love of computer games, I have become rather intuitive with technology. I have an odd ability to purchase the newest phone or computer and know, more-or-less, how to work it immediately out of the box. This is a great difference from digital immigrants who prefer "reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it" (Prensky, 2001). I find this especially evident with my parents who routinely go to the manual for instruction or use a phone book, rather than using Google for directions.

It is important to realize, and acknowledge, that digital natives are neurologically developing differently. As I have gotten older and technology becomes more prevalent, I have found it more and more difficult to work cooperatively with my dad, who I would consider a digital immigrant. As previously stated, he will often turn to the manual, whereas I simply dump out all the parts and get to work, knowing the general concept. My dad has a habit of giving unnecessarily answers to simple questions, which also drive me nuts. This is, undoubtedly, because I have developed an affinity to "parallel process and multi-task" while my dad performs tasks "slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually" (Prensky, 2001) even though he has done it a thousand times before. I guess this is where the phrase "Old habits die hard" comes from. Anytime I try to get my dad to multi-task, he is always hesitant, but I think he understands the logic behind it. I just have to be the one leading the way because he will get lost.

My personal experiences with technology in the classroom are, I suppose, fairly limited. Aside from the typical Power-point presentation, I have had little else. I am familiar with how to use an overhead projector and the digital projectors in many of the classrooms here at Concordia as well. I have had a small amount of contact with SmartBoards, but only to the extent of effective navigation. In reflection, classes I learned best from were by instructors who used technology properly. For example, I took very little from an anthropology course which was ENTIRELY Power-point, with massive amounts of information on each slide. In contrast, I took a great deal of learning from an instructor who used Power-point to show pictures of ancient cities, coupled with a few bullet points, which he elaborated on. For this reason, I believe it is highly necessary for all instructors to understand how to properly implement technology in the classroom, because it can distract, or even degenerate, a student's learning and/or interest in a topic.

When I use technology in my classroom, I will be certain to use current technology. Seeing "ancient" technologies in a classroom often sets a disposition of boredom in before the teaching has even begun. I know that every time I came to class and an overhead projector was used, I found myself getting distracted more often. I will also be sure that technology is appropriate for what I am teaching that particular day. It is not always effective to use Power points or films in class. I think that many instructors, too often, will use technology as a "scape goat" because they were lazy in their planning for the day's lesson.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, and Me

In my favorite C.L. Moore story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves,” Moore writes about a time machine sent back to 1942. The tiny time machine is filled with toys (e.g. a human doll with peculiar organs, a four-dimensional wire maize, etc.). In 1942, the seven-year-old Scott Paradine and his two-year-old sister Emma begin playing with the toys. The toys rewire the children’s brains and open them up to a consciousness foreign to their parent’s.

It’s an intriguing idea; that the brains of the children are fundamentally different from their parents based on technological experiences that weren’t even possible when their parents were their age.
“It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors (Prinski, 2001, p. 1).”

I am a digital immigrant. I have never held a smart phone, sent a tweet, or skyped. I can almost count on two hands the amount of text messages I have sent (many of which were written in complete sentences). Furthermore, I grew up in a rural town and went away to college to study an archaic discipline whose hey-day was sometime between the Astrolabe and the Watt steam engine.

Studying Theology I was exposed to countless theologians, who upon coming of age, girded up thier loins and jumped into hundred-year-old arguments to grapple with each other’s ideas and concepts (back when arguments could last hundreds of years). Who would have thought that while I was lost in a cirriculum of time-tested ideas I was being deprived of the necessary skills needed to teach, how serious was my technological depravity?

“It’s very serious, because the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language,” Marc Prensky warns (2001, p. 2).

If Prensky is right, then my undergraduate education is something equivalent to studying Mandarin Chinese to teach English in Germany. But I don’t agree, I think Prensky goes too far. Just because Digital Natives have “little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and “tell-test” instruction,” does not mean we should throw all that to the wayside.

Paradoxically, Prinsky’s sentiment for Digital Natives sounds eerily too similar to the eight-tenth century figure known as the noble wild man. To the French, the wild man was someone alien to their customs and free from all the trappings of modern society. And so it is with Prinsky, the Digital Native is free from the trappings of linear, sequential thinking, and if the Digital Native fails to pay attention (“powers down”) we ought to understand that his intentions are only good and that all the fault lies on the instructor, whose weird “accent” is a stumbling block to his eager students.

As an English instructor I want to use technology as long as it helps in teaching. I want to utilize things like social media and smart boards, but I’m not interested in novelty. In my classes the students will still read from books and turn in printed papers.



Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On The Horizon (Vol. 9, No. 5).

Digital Status

I definitely consider myself a digital native.  Since I can remember, I have always been interested in the latest and greatest that technology has to offer.  As a child, I was a HUGE sports nerd, so I was always concerned about what was happening around the country (and sometime the world) at all times.  This led me to be dependent on various types of technology, and began to spark my interest in it.  Whether it is computer games, video games, cyberspace, or even communication methods (such as cell phones, skype, ETC) I not only embrace technology, but I even have a small passion for it.  I've always viewed technology as something we will all obviously depend on in the future...Yet, I am always dumbfounded why there are still those who choose not to embrace it.  "Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice" (Digital Natives, 2).  Those who do not have the passion for technology, or are at least willing to adopt aspects of it, will have a very difficult time in the future, not only in teaching, but in life in general!

Not only was my educational experience drastically different between high school and college, but the difference in technology used was even greater!  In high school, the most advanced use of technology included an overhead-projector and an erasable marker..and if a classroom was really on the edge we had a digital projector.  At the University of Oregon, however, most of my classes were equipped with state of the art projectors, typically incorporated clicker technology, and occasionally used smart-boards.  In my last term before I graduated, one of my professors used technology seamlessly.  He created a detailed website for the class, which included the syllabus, our class schedule, daily assignments, attachments to read, videos to watch, and even an up to date grade book.  Though it seems like that SHOULD be said for every class I took at the University level, it was definitely not the case.  His ideas for how technology could be used in the classroom were very basic, but it was how he used them that made his teaching so effective.  I truly believe that I learned more from this adjunct professor than I did from any other throughout my 5 years in college, in large part due to his incorporation of the digital world.

After reading the articles by Marc Prensky, I wouldnt say that his ideas have changed my mind about using technology in classrooms, but they reiterate that it is a necessity in order to reach all of our students.  "All the students we teach have something in their lives that’s really engaging -- something that they do and that they are good at, something that has an engaging, creative component to it" (Engage, 62).  Therefor it is our job as teachers to access what truly engages them, and use it as a tool in teaching them...to reach them in the best way THEY know how, and not the best way WE know how.  As a line from Pay Attention states: "why not use the technology that our students love to teach more effectively?" (Pay Attention, 2:59). 

As a teacher, in addition to a class website (similar to the one my previously mentioned professor used) I plan on using social networks, such as Facebook, extensively in my teaching...first of all it is an AWESOME tool for getting to know your students, their passions, dislikes, ETC.  It is also useful for many things like establishing online discussions, posting certain projects online, and even reminders on homework or project due dates.  One aspect of incorporating technology into a classroom is the accessibility a student may or may not have to that technology when they are away from school.  I love Stephanie's ideas of utilizing devices such as podcasts, social media, ETC, but how do I provide the same education to a student without the availability of those resources?  Can I not make the use of technology mandatory?  Can I ask those students who do not have access to go to a library, which ends up being a much bigger task than the other students are given?

References

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (Vol. 9, No. 5).

Prensky, Marc. "Engage me or Enrage me: What Today's Learners Demand." Educause Sep. 2005: 60-64.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT2E2F0DmyE

Digital Natives/Immigrants Post - Rebecca Shook

Digital Natives/Immigrants Post

by Rebecca Shook

            In the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Prensky explains that the educational system of today is no longer working in teaching our children, due to the fact that their brains have changed drastically because of the amount of digital technology surrounding them (Prensky, 2001). Prensky writes, “Our students today are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games, and the internet” (2001, p. 1).  Prensky goes on to compare the so called “digital natives” to the learners of yesterday, whom he refers to as digital immigrants.  “As digital immigrants learn- like all immigrants, some better than others- to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their ‘accent,’ that is, their foot in the past” (Prensky, 2001, p. 2).  Digital natives have grown up in a completely different world and because of that, have completely different brains (Prensky, 2001).   It is no wonder that the educational system that was designed to teach to a completely different type of brain is failing our country.

            I consider myself a digital native in that I grew up with digital technology incorporated in to my every day life and am surrounded by many forms of digital technology today.  I am an avid video game player, internet browser, and smart phone user.  I prefer to do most of my communicating with people over email and text as opposed to making phone calls.  Prensky writes, “Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite” (2001, p. 2).  I am used to having information at my fingertips and I feel most comfortable when I can bounce around between different websites, working in many directions at once.

            Although I feel like I am much more a digital native than a digital immigrant, I would not consider the schools I attended to be technologically advanced in any way.  I remember having a computer lab in middle school that entire classrooms would use maybe once or twice a week.  In high school the computer lab was used for classrooms when needed and we also had teachers who would present using power-point presentations.  Aside from my schooling, all of my interactions with digital technology occurred in my home or in the summers, when I would choose to attend computer camps.  I also don’t remember much technology in college.  My professors used much of the same techniques as my high school teachers:  a lot of direct teaching and power-point slides.  Much like the children of today, I don’t remember being very interested in lectures by my professors and feel that I didn’t retain much information. 

            The articles presented to us in class have enlightened me to one of the problems of our educational system today.  I have always believed that using technology in the classroom is a great way to help make things more interesting and entertaining for students.  Incorporating computers in research and inquiry for science classes gives students a break from text books and opens avenues for more questions and research to arise.  Incorporating music and video games, along with various gadgets into every day classroom activities, really help the digital natives learn in ways they are best suited. 

References

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (Vol. 9, No. 5).