Digital Natives Response

February 4th

I would consider myself to be a digital native. There has not been a time in my life where I do not remember having computers and the internet. I can remember using computers during electives in elementary school, using them for science projects in middle school and every single paper that I have written in high school and college. I also agree with the theory of digital immigrants. My mom has to learn how to use a cell phone, a computer and all other technology that is new to her because of a generational gap and the fact that she was never taught the technology when she was younger.

I disagree with the article when it talks about the struggle of the digital immigrant professors trying to teach the digital native students. Being a student at Elon I have been genuinely impressed with the way professors use technology in their classrooms. Now we are rarely given syllabuses but are required to print them out ourselves. I think that the "immigrant" professors have tried very hard to incorporate technology into everything that they do. Tools such as Blackboard have allowed professors to eliminate paper in the classroom and to allow students to submit things electronically. Some professors including those in the foreign language departments use digital pens and editing software to give students corrected work electronically.

I think that this article describes me pretty accurately. I know that I spend a large amount of my days online. The first thing I do in the morning before heading to class is to check my email to see if there is anything that I need to know. I watch a lot of television, I use my cell phone to text people constantly and I enjoy browsing the internet for random items.

The most important thing to bring the immigrant and natives of technology together would be for the learning curve to catch up. New technologies would have to stop being invented to give the immigrants time to catch up to the skill level of the natives. I think that there will always be a gap between the two groups but at least in the field of education, the gap gets smaller every day.