Digital Natives

Digital natives in the classroom

From: http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/digitalnatives/index.htm - Encyclopaedia of Educational Technology

"OUR STUDENTS HAVE CHANGED RADICALLY," is the observation of Marc Prensky in his article Digital natives, digital immigrants. (Prensky, October 2001.) Today's students and young workers are part of a cohort he calls "Digital Natives." Raised on MTV, video games, e-mail, the Web and instant messaging, Digital Natives have developed cognitive thinking patterns that differ from previous generations. As a result, the challenge facing educational designers is to recognize these cognitive differences and to develop learning offerings that are appropriate to their cognitive learning patterns.

"Blogs, Wikis, and Modding, Oh My!"

Are you a Digital Native? Take the test! Click on the screen to begin.

Digital Natives, Generation-D (digital), Nintendo Kids, the MTV generation, whatever term you chose to describe them, today's youth has grown up with an uprecedented access to and appetite for technology and new media. Since 1970, when Pong (the revolutionary video arcade game) was introduced, children have voraciously consumed a steady diet of digital games, music videos, and the world wide web. More recently, they have enthusiastically embraced technologies that are on the leading edge of the technology wave including live chats, instant messaging, smart mobs, blogs, wikis, modding, and more. While these terms might be common parlance in the vernacular of Digital Natives, they are cryptic and foreign to the "Digital Immigrants" who struggle to understand and master these new technologies. For more information on these, and other technology terms used in this article, take the Are you a Digital Native? quiz above.

Digital Natives perceive technology as their friend and rely on it to study, work, play, relax and communicate. Natives dominate the seats in our classrooms and are an increasing presence in the entry-level workplace.

How Digital Natives Think Differently

http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/digitalnatives/index.htm (Follow this link to explore the differences between digital natives and digital immigrants)