Digital natives vs. digital immigrants

Who are we? Digital natives or immigrants?

When I see my nephew, who is just 6 years old and can use a computer, iPad or iPhone very well and does all kinds of fun stuff such as downloading files, uploading videos and pictures on his Facebook, I often question the pace of technology in our lives. It is funny that I had no idea of technology until I attended the university. I believed that there was a magic IT room that we could get connected to the world, and when we were out of that room, we were not connected virtually to search on Altavista or Yahoo. I didn't get the idea that the existence of the internet as our new space or persona was simply there outside the IT room. By the time I was good at using the computer and some software, I was nearly graduating from the college. Now you can tell that this might happen and it is called as the generation gap. It might be but more than this, it is a singularity as Prensky (2001) says: "A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century".

According to Prensky (2001) how might this singularity affect our teaching then?

The profile of students as digital natives is as follows: 

1. Today's students think and process information differently from their predecessors.
2. Today's students speak of a language different than their predecessors. That is, the language of the digital immigrants refers to going faster, less step-by-step and more random access.

The basic thoughts for teachers:

1. Teachers need to reconsider teaching methods for the learners who cannot tolerate the slow pace and step by step processes.
2. Teachers should take the content into consideration. Whatever they teach, they need to think if they can make the teaching more efficient by using technology, thus getting the attention of the students of 21st century.

Reference: 

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. Retrieved on http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf