Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

I see myself as a Digital Immigrant who has been doing her best in the last two years to become fluent in the language of Digital Natives. The statement, "the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant Instructors, who speak and outdated language (that of pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks and entirely new language" on page 2 of Prensky's article stood out to me as I read. How are we as supposed to reach a digital world if we are not willing to embrace it as a part of our daily lives? I have been working with my students on understanding greater than, less than, and equal to and during class instruction I realized that I was the one who had to technology in my hand when writing on the eno board so I quickly stopped and said I have an idea. Of course this grabbed some of my students attention and I began to do a mini lesson on technology in the hands of students. I showed them the process in which to use to eno board, how to go to sites, how to change the pen color, how to complete interactive notes, and more. The next thing I knew, I was watching my students in control of their learning. I felt I had reached them and I guess you could say, I was speaking their language. The experience of learning, researching, note-taking, etc... came to life in my classroom and I began to think that if I was able to accomplish this within the first 3 weeks of school then what more could I accomplish if I became more knowledgable of the technology that we, my students and I, are surrounded by.

It has amazed me how the articles and reading we do in graduate school can so quickly apply to our lives as teachers. It seems that everytime I read something new I can't wait to implement and explore its possibilities within my classroom and other areas of the school. It is so awesome when you can leave your room in the care of another adult and due to what the students know and have been taught they can still continue with the technological aspects of a lesson. No more leaving that element out of lessons just because the teacher is not their. If the students have the knowledge then let it continue with or without your presence. So exciting!