Digital Immigrants

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Firstly what dose digital natives mean, a digital native is a person where digital technology is already around when they were born, which mean they have grown up with digital technology such as mobile phones, computers, game consoles, mp3 and all other digital technologies. The opposite to this a person who grew up without these digital technologies and learnt how to use them later on in life for example if the person was born before the introduction of mobile phone they adapted and learnt how to use this technology these people are placed with the name digital immigrants.
Now we have established the meaning of these terms we can now evaluate the debate, which surrounds this area. Marc Prensky (2001) is one of the leading experts in this field …show more content…

Referring to Prensky work it seems that age is the most important factor. According to (Tapcott 1998) technology is the place in which younger people are better than older people he refers to this as "generation lap" it is about the exposer in which the person has with these technologies. However the extent in which a person is a digital narrative is a digital narrative by birth or exposer it is an important factor in policy and practice. If digital natives are defined by age then the older generation they are seen to be "digitally disconnected". On the other hand if being digital native is due to exposer and experiences then it is possible for learning to take place in environment in which younger and older generations interact. However there has not been a lot of research in this area as majority of pervious studies focuses on the younger people using the new technologies and their parents for example (studies by Livingstone and Bober 2005). Additionally most of the research, which has been taken, place and the data produced are based on the American population. Kennedy, et al (2008) stated that educational policy maker in the UK could not make changes in the United Kingdom in response to these claims as we need more empirical evidence to inform the …show more content…

It is said that digital natives are active experimental learner, excellent at multitasking, and dependent on communication technologies for accessing information and for interacting with other (Frand, 2000; Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005; Prensky 2001a b; Tapscott, 1999). It has been stated that these characteristics raise valid question about weather that the current education system is equipped to meet the needs of new student (digital natives). Tapscott (1998), described education in developing countries as already in crisis with more challenge to com: "There is growing appreciation that the old approach [of didactic teaching] is ill-suited to the intellectual, social, motivational, and emotional needs of the new generation' (p. 131). This was echoed by Prensky's (2001a) claim that: 'Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach' (p.

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