There are many terms affiliated to the youth of today, Digital Natives (PRENSKY, Marc, 2001) Generation Y, Generation We, Generation Sell, Millennials (STRAUSS, William & Howe, Neil, 1992), Generation Next (PBS, 2012) and the Net Generation (TAPSCOTT, D, 1998)
The use of these terms purports to distinguish this generation from the generation that went before. So how does this generation really differ from the preceding generations?
The debate about the classification of people as either Digital Natives (PRENSKY, Marc, 2001) or Digital Immigrants is a debate that has been ongoing since 2001. Prensky’s definition of Digital Natives has been applied to anyone born between 1980 and 1994. The term “Net Generation” (TAPSCOTT, D, 1998) has also been applied to this group of young learners. Prensky described this group as “surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age” (PRENSKY, Marc, 2001).
It is held by many that this new generation of learners have many different abilities and skills which have been fostered by their immersion in the digital realm. They are described as multi-taskers, experiential learners and dependent on technology for information gathering and socialising. This form of immersion in technology can alienate others and so they shun the technology or come to IT from a different perspective becoming users of technology - Digital Immigrants, but not fully immersed.
They may learn “to adapt to their environment, but they always retain, to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past.” (PRENSKY, Marc, 2001)
Tapscott in his book Grown Up Digital coins the phrase the Net Generation. This labelling encompasses anyone between the age of 11 and 30 who like Digital Natives have grown up immersed in technology and the internet. He outlines eight norms of the Net Generation.
Net Geners want freedom in everything they do.
They want to customise everything, their browsers, their phones even their entertainment.
A breed of users who demand transparency. They don’t just accept the supplier’s word.
They want to use companies whose values align with their own, they demand integrity and openness.
They want play at home, at work and at play. They live in interactive experiences.
They prefer to work in groups, maybe not physically but interactively, they facebook, they tweet, and online games with multiple users are the norm. They are connected
The live for speed, because they are connected everything must happen in real time, the here and now.
They seek innovation; they demand the latest and greatest in all things.
Prensky’s Digital Native, Digital Immigrant looked at the concept of teaching young people in today’s (2001) education system. He states that a “really big discontinuity
has taken place” and that is the “arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th Century”. (PRENSKY, Marc, 2001)
He sees the Teachers as Digital Immigrants trying to teach IT to Digital Natives. His main thrust is that educators have to learn to teach differently to Digital Natives because they see and experience the world differently. Therefore they learn differently. The Bruges Communique on Vocational Education and Training states that “Participating countries should improve initial and continuing training for teachers, trainers, mentors and counsellors by offering flexible training provision and investment. The ageing European teacher and trainer population, changing labour markets and working environments, together with the need to attract those best suited to teaching; make this objective even more critical. Traineeships for teachers and trainers in enterprises should be encouraged”. (EUROPEAN MINISTERS FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING, 2010b) This communiqué highlight the need for retraining of teachers because they are getting old and again states that there is a need to attract teachers that are better suited to the job.
Digital Natives experience the world in multiple modes, image, video, sound, game.
Prensky claims that digital natives
use IT language- TEXT Computer terms
Prefer graphics over Text
Live in and are surrounded by ICT
Are Multitaskers
Instant everything and everything instantly- they live in a here and now world, whether it is information or communication
Inform other about events by posting pictures on Facebook (visual versus verbal or text stories) (ZUR, O. & Zur, A., 2011)
The news that is important comes from friends via Facebook (political discussions on walls), Twitter, political blogs not just news sites
Live their life online in the open for everybody to where they may have hundreds of “friends” and they are not afraid to be known, not especially concerned with privacy
Everywhere around there is a young person, listening to headphones, texting and probably facebooking four conversations all at the same time and playing some computer game with the TV on in the background or in a study with headphones on.
A Digital Immigrant according to Prensky would find this world an absolutely traumatic experience. They prefer to
use text instead of images
Use proper English
a world without ICT
work together physically
work on one task at a time
prefer face to face contact or phone conversation
prefer to receive information in a slow, linear and logical manner
receive news from traditional news programmes or news sites such as independent.ie or examiner.ie etc or print news media (ZUR, O. & Zur, A., 2011)
In his second article Prensky claims “Digital Natives’ brains are likely physically
different as a result of the digital input they received growing up”. (PRENSKY, Marc,
2001b). He also references the fact that the Digital Native tends to get bored easily with old ways of teaching and learning but can be lost for hours on games etc.
Prensky states that in teaching digital natives a teacher must adapt to teaching in a different way,
It means going faster
Less step by step instructions
More in parallel
More random access
So according to Prensky teachers need to develop two kinds of content; the “Legacy” material which includes reading, writing, arithmetic, logical thinking, and ideas of the past, in other words the more time honoured traditional curriculum and the “Future” material which is grounded in digital and technological and includes software, hardware, robotics etc. (PRENSKY, Marc, 2001)