Reflection to Marc Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

When I was reading Marc Prensky's "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" I was bored at first. All of what I was reading was nothing too surprising to me. A benefit I did get out of reading this was that Marc Prensky gave me good terminology for describing the differences with those who grew up with technology versus those who had to learn it or still refuse to learn it. He took the words right out of my mouth when describing the differences between my parents and my siblings. My younger sister is on the beginning of learning the internet world and because my parents weren't Digital Natives they weren't aware of the impending doom on not having an anti-virus on the computer. And two computers later, my sister has learned more about trustable sites and my parents had to find some way of fixing the computers. Instead of learning about what to do or how to protect them, they hired someone or picked my brain to 'make it better'. My mother didn't have an email account until November, when I set it up for her. My dad didn't know how to turn on his new laptop.

Being an engineer as my primary background, I had an easy time learning the basics of CAD freshman year. I wasn't required to do much more with that software, but did with others which were more complex. I didn't know that Doom, Quake and Monkey Wrench were made for the assistance in learning to use CAD software. If I had known this I would have definitely picked up the games to learn more. CAD was a software that I frequently encountered possibly being able to use, but because I didn't know enough about it, would pass on the opportunity.

I think it would be beneficial for myself, for other future teachers, for current teachers in all levels to know how to teach to the Digital Natives. If what's going on currently isn't working effectively enough, what practices can be done to make the needed change?