Marc Prensky and the Digital Natives

A short critical response to Marc Prensky's article 'Digital Natives Digital Immigrants'.


Part I 'Digital Natives Digital Immigrants' (click to view article here).

Critical Summary

Prensky proposes that there is a mark in the change in which today’s students think, and therefore the way these students learn, ‘Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.’ He suggests that those responsible for these students’ learning (teachers, lecturers etc.) do not think in this same way. This creates a void in the space in which teaching learners communicate knowledge, and therefore that earning is not being communicated effectively. For this communication to become effective he proposes that someone needs to change (someone, either the Digital Native or the Digital Immigrant). Prensky suggests that since the Natives will not revert back to the older ways of teaching – they will not see the need – that this then the Immigrants who need to adapt. And why shouldn’t they, in the inherent native-immigrant analogy. The native world is the one in which we live, the immigrants are required to adapt in order to fit the native way.

Prensky’s proposition is very clear, and I do agree that there needs to be a shift in the direction of digital technologies in teaching. It is very hard however, to pigeon-hole people into the two categories – they are mutually exclusive in the analogy, but realistically this is not wholly true. Many lecturers and teachers are very able to work and communicate via technology, far better in fact than myself. They will have witnessed these technological developments, and the effect these developments have had. They will know the impact of technology far better than a native who has grown up alongside it. To them, it will either be a good or a bad development. Those who see the benefits of digital technologies are perhaps those who are far more digitally literate. Those that see digital progression as bad are those who cannot relate or adapt to today’s students. It is perhaps this opinion that needs challenging, correcting, and taking forward into an effective teaching practice that works both for the student and the teacher, or the Immigrant and the Native.