After reading Mark Prensky´s article and watching the video A Vision of K-12 Students Today we come up with the term "Digital Natives". This term refers to a generation that have grown up surrounded by technology (computers, video games, cell phones, tablets, digital music players,among others). This generation represents the students we find today in the classroom. These students learn differently, since technology is part of their daily lives and they are used to deal with information in a completely different way in comparison with other generations where technology was not present from the beginning of their existence. Mark Prensky refers to the generations that haven´t grown up with technology as " Digital immigrants".
This dichotomy represents a problem in the field of education when teachers insist on teaching in the way they were taught and are reluctant to change i.e. that they continue applying ways of teaching as if students were the same, but the truth is that they are not. Consequently, students most common reaction is to switch off. Thus,we need to understand how important it is for us, as future teachers to get adapted to this new way of learning if we want to succeed in achieving good results.
I included this video because it shows clearly who are the students we are going to teach, those " Digital Natives" Mark Prenksy talks about, and what we are expected to do as educators in order to help them. Are we ready to face the challenge?
