Thursday, July 15, 2010

Digital Natives: Digital Immigrants

Prensky’s (2001) argument on digital immigrants versus digital natives is very positive in that it offers hope to me, a digital immigrant, that there is a chance I can adapt and become assimilated into the new Web 2.0 world. Of particular interest were his views of the role of both ‘Legacy’ and ‘Future’ educational content in the language of the digital natives and the dynamics that such material establishes between “learning new stuff” or “learning new ways to do old stuff.” He concludes that the role of computer games will offer maximum advantage to educational systems. Being a mother to a child of the net generation and seeing first hand the enormous educational opportunities that online game have offered, I can appreciate his sentiments. However I do get concerned about the impact that constant interaction with computers is having on the social constructs of this generation and reinforcing further the reliance on a computer interface for education requirements compounds this problem. However the creativity that he forecasts in establishing the possibilities of such games and their impact on developing cyber interaction and education potential may offset the negative social impacts of such progress.


Prensky M. 2001 Digital native Digital Immigrant: On the Horizon MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001
2001 Available at:
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

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