'Digital immigrants' teaching 'digital natives'

Our educational system is designed to meet the needs of ten-year-ago students, but today's students are not the same that in the past.  Students nowadays have different skills, life style, taste and way of thinking; the way they answer and learn is also different.

Today, students feel comfortable with technology because they have always had it around them.  It is common to see a four year old kid playing video games or using a DVD player even better than an adult.  Some kids can type their name in a video game when they can’t even write it in a sheet of paper.  At a young school age students are very familiar with computers, video games and all technology around.  There have been several cases of teenagers hacking secure networks or creating viruses.  These are some examples of how accustomed students are to technology in the most recent years.

Those that were not born surrounded by technology are known as 'digital immigrants' because they are coming into a digital world they were not aware of.  ‘Digital immigrants’ need to read a manual instead of letting a friendly software guide them and will rather avoid digital transactions as much as possible.

The gap between ‘digital immigrants’ and ‘digital natives’ is impacting education since ‘digital immigrants’ are not willing to accept new students’ learning style.  For ‘digital immigrants’ books are more acceptable sources than Internet websites, while ‘digital natives’ just want to have fun with technology.  What happens when ‘digital immigrants’ go to the front of a classroom and try to teach a ‘digital native’?  Unless 'digital immigrants' are willing to adapt to today's studens skills, these students will turn their brain off to catch what lecturers have to say.

My objective for this wiki is to make 'digital immigrants' understand the gap between them and their students as well as collaborate together to find a solution.

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