Digital native students vs. Digital inmigrant teachers

As we all know, technology rules on every aspect of our lives, whether we are watching TV, texting or sending an e-mail, but what about education? Today’s learners are more acquainted with technological devices than teachers, but why? The reason is they are Digital Natives, i.e. they have born in a digital world while teachers were not, and that is why they (we) are called Digital Immigrants (Marc Prensky, 2001).

Students complain about being bored at school, learning nothing; of course it is easy to think that is their own fault because students don’t pay attention.  But what if we think about “the great canyon” existing between these two generations? We need to give this problem a lot of thought.

Is there anything teachers can do to help in the learning process? Surely! One thing is to use current contents; it is useless for students to learn Latin for example. Another helpful idea is to modify the teaching methodology; we may learn to adapt ourselves to this new era by using email, mobile phones (smart ones or dumb ones), Facebook, and so forth, but it just isn’t very natural for us, and perhaps it will never be. It’s like learning a second language: you can communicate but with some struggle.

When we are young, we absorb language so quickly and unconsciously, but find it so much harder to learn a new language when we are older; the same seems to be true for technology. So if there's some new app you want to try, and you keep failing, don’t give up just get a few of your colleagues, friends, or even students to help you. In that way, you're all learning together. Try something new! Constant communication is a young fashion that doesn’t seem to disappear, it remains generation after generation. If we say children are texting all the time, take advantage of that! After all, they are reading and writing, aren't they?

The reality is that there are pros and cons on both sides, so we should seek for mutual understanding. Obviously, applying any solution requires hard work; nevertheless, the reward is worthy! It is all about talking to and learning from people who view things in a different way.

References

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