Blog 3 Week 4

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part ii: Do they really think differently?     On the  Horizon, 9(6), 1-9.

Chase, Z., & Laufenberg, D. (2011). Embracing the squishiness of digital literacy. Journal of

Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(7), 535-537.

Moyer, J. (2011). What does it really mean to "read" a text?. Journal of Adolescent & Adult

Literacy, 55(3), 253-256.

I really enjoyed reading the Prensky’s articles from this week.  I actually learned a lot from them, and they kept my interest.  This whole thing about Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants makes so much sense.  Starting with my generation and the others that follow, children are being introduced to all different kinds of technology and resources, and they in turn develop their brains differently.  It is actually kind of scary. Growing up when I wanted to become a teacher, I would agree with the Digital Immigrant’s arguments on how students should be taught.  After reading these two articles, children need to be taught totally differently. Straight lecturing, which is mostly what I received growing up, is not going to work for my future students. In the first Prensky article it states, “our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language”.  I guess I am sort of intimidated now; I wasn’t really taught from a Digital Immigrant perspective, so I cannot relate easily to these Digital Immigrant requirements.  I found it really interesting on the use of video games to teach these new Digital Immigrants.  My brother is glued to video games and television- me, not so much.  He can sit in front of the television for hours just working on a single game.  He has enough attention to sit there in the same chair, missing dinner, just to beat more and more levels.  When homework time rolls around, he cannot even work for half an hour without getting fidgety. So my brother prefers games to school work, who wouldn’t? After reading the two Prensky articles, it really had my mind grinding gears to figure out how I could reach out to my brother if he were one of my students. I am going to have to teach in a fun way that involves this new and updated technology. 

From analyzing my younger brother, my future students will need a faster paced learning environment, just like a video game. In fact, trying to teach these Digital Natives can be viewed in relation to a video game.  They aren’t going to play a game that isn’t fun and that is not interesting to them. They want a game that requires a fast paced setting, not too dumb downed.  No one wants t o play a video game that is under their age level. It will be important to come up with video games that while still teaching curriculum, also involves keeping the students busy and active. I don’t really understand why some teachers are being stubborn and not accepting the fact that students cannot be taught in the same manner as they have been in the past. It just is not going to work. The brains of students are wired completely differently, and it will be our job as teachers to step out of our comfort zones to reach out to our students to make learning interesting, fun, and compatible with their brains.

            I also found it interesting that the human brain was not wired to be able to read.  Reading is actually quite difficult for our brains because it is not what they were designed for in the first place. Our brains were first reprogrammed to understand written language and reading. Then they were reprogrammed for television, and now video/computer games.  It is hard for students to retrain their brains again for the older ways of teaching. This can be very frustrating. It’s like taking a Spanish course in college that teaches strictly in French, that you don’t even know. So of course students are not going to be engaged, the teaching is not geared towards them at all.

            One of the additional readings I will be blogging about is “What Does It Really Mean to “Read” a Text?”  I know I have heard from other sources besides this article that reading is on the decline for students. Maybe it is due to all the video games and television their minds are thoroughly engaged in? This article disproves that reading is on the decline. Reading in print services may be declining, but there are newer modalities that students are using. Kindles have become very popular- but does this count as “reading”? Well certainly! Just because it isn’t in the format of an old fashion book does not mean that it isn’t reading. I personally like to have the real book experience, but lots of my friends have been getting Kindles, and I am getting a little bit jealous. I usually buy my books, and all those books that I have acquired over the years take up half my room at home.  Kindles and other electronic devices store all the books on ONE device. How convenient is that? This makes it so much easier for children to complete their reading assignments, especially if the assignment calls for more than one book. Studies have shown that it doesn’t matter what particular modality one uses to read, the information is all comprehended in the same fashion.  So as the change occurs from reading print to e-books, the change must also occur in students’ environments and resources such as the library. If they cannot access the particular modality that fits them best, they will more than likely not be engaged to read.

            In “Embracing the Squishiness of Digital Literacy”, the article stresses that digital literacy is not a new literacy, it is just the same literacy only updated. Digital Literacy is implemented by the use of laptop computers in an 11^th grade classroom. The computers are used to record interviews, and to create an online forum of students commenting and listening back and forth to others students’ interviews.  Reading and writing are incorporated into this project with students then writing rough drafts and revising their work. Students can go further and podcast themselves. This project assignment is so cool! It reaches out to all types of students, and there is plenty of room for development.  Technology is needed to help the students become more familiar with the digital world to develop their knowledge with digital literacy.