Are We Digital Natives or Digital Immigrants???? (ENG 3010)

Its weeks after the elections and I could not be happier. Not because Barack Obama’s the president but for some other minor reasons. Today in our English class after almost a month and half of talking about politics and media bias, our teacher assigned us something far more different and interesting to read. I read an article today by Marc Prensky titled ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’. The author makes some good and valid points on the emergence of a new digital media young generation. Today’s younger generation surrounded by new age technology has a whole different style of thinking than the previous generation. He calls the young generation of today as ‘Digital Natives’ since they have been surrounded by technology since the moment they were born. He calls the rest as ‘Digital Immigrants’ since we had to adapt to the use of technology in our daily lives. I think the invention of state-of-the-art video games and the internet is the prime cause of bringing this revolutionary change. These days the video games are made not only keeping the kids in mind but also the youth. The video games have ratings just like for the TV shows and movies. Some of the games have serious adult content in terms of violence and portrayal of sex. The kids of today are really getting tech-savvy. I am only 20 years old and seeing my little cousins (10 and 8 years old) playing video games and surfing on the internet makes me feel really old and someone from the past generation. It makes me a ‘Digital Immigrant’ and them ‘Digital Natives’. I like the way the author came up with these terms so appropriately. I think due the emergence of new age gaming system like X-Box, PS I, II, III and Wii took gaming to a whole different level. The gaming systems can now integrate with the internet and play and compete against other online players sitting virtually at any corner of the world. It’s a nice way to bring the world together…lol. Internet is of course had gotten far better than video games. With the exponential growth of websites on virtually anything and everything, you have everything you need right at your fingertips. Schools and universities have recognized the benefits of the internet and have successfully integrated the use of internet in their curriculum to enhance student learning experience. For almost all the college classes, I have taken so far, all the teachers have posted their class notes and their audio recordings online on blackboard website. This makes it very convenient for the students to have access to the teacher’s information anytime and as many times as they want. But there is also a disadvantage to it. Students don’t feel the need to come to lectures since they can listen to it later. Teachers have come up with daily attendance point system to rectify the problem. At many universities the teachers make the use of ‘clickers’ –which is way to take daily attendance. The teachers ask the students multiple choice questions at the beginning or end of the lecture. The students are required to answer those questions Many times the teachers show animation of important and hard-to-understand concepts via different educational websites with the use of the internet. Thus in my opinion technological advancements has been nothing but a boon to the human race.
But there still exists a flock of teachers who still haven’t welcomed or fully adapted the ‘going digital’ concept thoroughly. For example, for the research paper in ENG 1010 class, we were supposed to cite three sources. But NONE of the resources could be internet-based. She did not want us to find any sources off the internet even though the websites were reliable. Instead she made all of us to go different libraries and search for written documents that support our research topics. It took me two days to find such articles in magazines and newspaper when it could easily be done in less than 2 hours—had she allowed us to use the internet sources. Her argument was that internet makes the job easier and it’s an easy way out. She failed to understand that we can find more and far better materials to support our argument. This is the best example of the teacher being ‘digital immigrant’ and students being ‘digital natives’. Another important point that Prensky makes in his article is common belief of the digital immigrant parents and teachers that students cannot be educated via watching TV or listening to music. This used to be true back in the days when TV and music was meant only for entertainment. But due to immergence of TV channels like, Discovery, National Geographic and History the youth are able to better educate themselves about the environment, wild life and happening of the past in a much better way. The youth of today have increasingly become ‘visual learners’. Thanks to the development of these educational channels.
I agree with pretty much everything that Prensky had to stay in his article except for one thing. I don’t agree with is proposal of turning everything into a game for the kids and young adults since they appear to learn best the ‘digital way’. Prensky argues that since kids learn so much faster with the help of video games, the schools should modify their curriculum in such a way that all the learning can actually happen in a exciting and joyful manner through the use of video games. Such an approach is feasible only upto elementary schools where kids don’t need to stress out with course work as much. But as the kids move on to high school and college, education via games is not at all possible. Think of about it for a second: You cannot turn a kid into a doctor by making him play video games all day long. I think it is a terrible idea to even experiment. It’s sensible to introduce the use of computer software to better explain the concepts and subject matter with the help of 3 dimensional diagrams and animated movies etc. but the suggestion to completely replace the traditional textbooks is ridiculous in my opinion. Kids need to learn to focus and try to find a way on his/her own to make the boring stuff interesting. While learning any new information is always boring and dull in the beginning. Kids have to learn to deal with it. This is a quality every child needs to develop in him to sustain the atrocities that life will throw at him as he grows older. Overall a good read. Stay tuned for more on this next week.

Bias 2--Discussion continued this week as well (ENG 3010)

Hello again,
So on the week of halloween, we contunued our discussion on bias in media. One of the three groups who still had to make thier presentation went ahead and presented their project to the class. They were assgined to search for any sort of bias on the diferent radio channels. NPR was the only radio channel that was found to be really neutral in terms of their plitical views. It makes sense because it is government run and it is not looking for any profit from private companies. Whereas other local and national public radio channels were either shifted slightly to the left or to the right.
The reamining two groups went on wednesday. Their presentation was interesting too. In the end we as a class came to a conclusion that there is defiantely some kind of bias preelant in everything around us. A bias-free society is practically impossible because not everyone will agree with everything that is going on around us at this time.
One specific type of bias which was seen in every form of media was that, all of them were either suporting democrats or republicans. They would only cover news from the presidential candidates of these two parties while in reality there are many more third party candidates runnig for president. As citizens, we never learn or hear anything abot what these candidates have to say. The media does not give them any coverage at all. Hence, this is also one type of bias that eery media is following.
That's all we talked this week. On friday our class got cancelled because the STATE HALL--the builiding where our class meets was closed down by the Wayne State University Police Department. There was supposedly a 'bomb threat' in the building. All classes in the buidling were cancelled for the rest of the day. Thankfully there was no bomb found. I am assuming that someone made a prank call since it was Halloween on friday. That's it for this week. Stay tuned for more on Bias next week.