Due Date: 23-6-2022 at 1pm

Due Date: 23-6-2022 at 1pm

Tittle: Digital Technology and Media Integration for Early Childhood Contexts in the 21st Century

Type of assignment: Essy include (NOTE: Dont forget to put Introduction, Body and Conclusion)

For this assessment you will need to critically evaluate the research, literature, policies, and frameworks to demonstrate your understanding of why integration of digital technologies and media in early childhood curriculum is important for young children's learning and development.

Length 2000 words

Reference: APA 7 Reference

Target point for this assignment (NOTE: Please look target point when finish with writing my assignment to get my target point)

1. Criteria: Use of Academic Conventions - Presentation, Structure & Academic Language

10to >8.5pts

High Distinction

Outstanding organisation, presentation, structure and following of assessment requirements. Academic writing and language use are outstanding with minor grammatical, spelling, word choice, syntax errors.

2. Criteria: Use of Academic Conventions - Research and Resources

10to >8.5pts

High Distinction

Evidence of in-depth research, reading, analysis, original and creative thought is demonstrated.

3.Criteria: Use of Academic Conventions - Referencing Protocols

10 to >8.5 pts

High Distinction

Outstanding use of academic referencing system with minor in-text and no reference list errors.

4. Criteria: Content Knowledge and Synthesis of Understanding

20 to >17.0 pts

High Distinction

Outstanding critical evaluation of the research, literature, policies, and frameworks to demonstrate your understanding of why integration of digital technologies and media in early childhood curriculum is important for young children's learning and development.

5.Criteria: Content Knowledge and Synthesis of Understanding

10 to >8.5 pts

High Distinction

Outstanding overview of digital technologies and media in contemporary early childhood contexts.

6. Criterial: Content Knowledge and Synthesis of Understanding

40 to >34.0 pts

High Distinction

Outstanding understanding of why integration of digital technologies and media in early childhood curriculum is important for young children's learning and development.

Additional Reading for Assignment 1 Digital Technologies

ACARA. (n.d.).HYPERLINK "https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/technologies/digital-technologies/?year=12983&strand=Digital+Technologies+Knowledge+and+Understanding&strand=Digital+Technologies+Processes+and+Production+Skills&capability=ignore&capability=Literacy&capability=Numeracy&capability=Information+and+Communication+Technology+%28ICT%29+Capability&capability=Critical+and+Creative+Thinking&capability=Personal+and+Social+Capability&capability=Ethical+Understanding&capability=Intercultural+Understanding&priority=ignore&priority=Aboriginal+and+Torres+Strait+Islander+Histories+and+Cultures&priority=Asia+and+Australia%E2%80%99s+Engagement+with+Asia&priority=Sustainability&elaborations=true&elaborations=false&scotterms=false&isFirstPageLoad=false" t "_blank"Australian Curriculum: Digital technologies

American Council of paediatrics (2016).Media and young minds.(Links to an external site.)Paediatrics138(5)DOI: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-2591

Full Link or Reading Resource Below

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/138/5/e20162591/60503/Media-and-Young-Minds?autologincheck=redirectedEarly Childhood Australia. (2021).Statement on young children and digital technology.Full Link or Reading Resource Below

https://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/our-work/submissions-statements/eca-statement-young-children-digital-technologies/Canadian Paediatric Society. (2017).Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital worldFull Link or Reading Resource Below

https://cps.ca/documents/position/screen-time-and-young-childrenAustralian Government The Department of Health. (2012).Screen time

Full Link or Reading Resource Below

https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/2021/08/05/too-much-time-screens-screen-time-effects-and-guidelines-children-and-young-people#:~:text=For%20screen%20time%2C%20the%20guidelines,years%20(not%20including%20schoolwork).American Psychological Association. (2020).What do we really know about kids and screens?Full Link or Reading Resource Below

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/cover-kids-screens

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008).The digital natives debate: A critical review of the evidence.British journal of educational technology,39(5), 775-786.

Full Link or Reading Resource Below

University of Wollongong

Research Online Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive) Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities

2008

The 'digital natives' debate: a critical review of the evidence

S. Bennett Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, sbennett@uow.edu.au

Karl A. Maton University of Sydney, kmaton@uow.edu.au

Lisa Kervin University of Wollongong, lkervin@uow.edu.au

Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/edupapers

Part of the Education Commons

Recommended Citation

Bennett, S.; Maton, Karl A.; and Kervin, Lisa: The 'digital natives' debate: a critical review of the evidence 2008. https://ro.uow.edu.au/edupapers/1149

Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: research-pubs@uow.edu.au

The digital natives debate: A critical review of the evidence

Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin

Sue Bennett is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong. Karl Maton is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney. Lisa Kervin is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong. Address for correspondence: Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, Australia. Email: sue_bennett@uow.edu.au

Abstract

The idea that a new generation of students is entering the education system has excited recent attention amongst educators and education commentators. Termed digital natives or the Net generation, these young people are said to have been immersed in technology all their lives, imbuing them with sophisticated technical skills and learning preferences for which traditional education is unprepared. Grand claims are being made about the nature of this generational change and about the urgent necessity for educational reform in response. A sense of impending crisis pervades this debate. However the actual situation is far from clear. In this paper, the authors draw on the fields of education and sociology to analyse the digital natives debate. The paper presents and questions the main claims made about digital natives and analyses the nature of the debate itself. We argue that rather than being empirically and theoretically informed, the debate can be likened to an academic form of a moral panic. We propose that a more measured and disinterested approach is now required to investigate digital natives and their implications for education.

The one thing that does not change is that at any and every time it appears that there have been great changes

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove

Introduction

Commentators on education are arguing that a new generation of learners is entering our educational institutions, one which has grown up with information and communication technology (ICT) as an integral part of their everyday lives. It is claimed these young peoples use of ICTs differentiates them from previous generations of students and from their teachers, and that the differences are so significant that the nature of education itself must fundamentally change to accommodate the skills and interests of these digital natives (Prensky, 2001a). We shall argue that though such calls for major change in education are being widely propounded, they have been subjected to little critical scrutiny, are under-theorised and lack a sound empirical basis. There is thus a pressing need for theoretically informed research.

In this paper we bring together educational research and the sociology of knowledge to provide an analysis of the current state of play in the digital natives debate. We begin by setting out the main claims made in the debate. Secondly, we explore the assumptions underlying these claims and the consequent arguments for educational change, highlighting the limited nature of the research evidence on which they are based. Thirdly, we consider why such poorly evidenced claims have gained widespread currency by analysing the nature of the debate itself. This highlights how principal positions have created the academic equivalent of a moral panic that restricts critical and rational debate. Lastly, we argue that the debate as currently formulated is at an impasse and the way forward requires a research agenda capable of providing a sound basis on which future debate and policymaking can be founded.

Claims about digital natives

The generation born roughly between 1980 and 1994 has been characterised as the digital natives (Prensky, 2001a) or the Net generation (Tapscott, 1998) because of their familiarity with and reliance on information and communication technology (ICT). They are described as living lives immersed in technology, 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, 2001a, p. 1). Social researchers, Howe and Strauss (2000; 2003), labelled this generation the millenials, ascribing to them distinct characteristics that set them apart from previous generations. They offer a positive view of this new generation as optimistic, team-oriented achievers who are talented with technology, and claim they will be Americas next great generation.

Immersion in this technology-rich culture is said to influence the skills and interests of digital natives in ways significant for education. It is asserted, for example, that digital natives learn differently to past generations of students. They are held to be active experiential learners, proficient in multi-tasking, and dependent on communications technologies for accessing information and for interacting with others (Frand, 2000; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Prensky, 2001a, 2001b; Tapscott, 1999). Commentators claim these characteristics raise fundamental questions about whether education is currently equipped to meet the needs of this new cohort of students. Tapscott (1998), for example, described education in developed countries as already in crisis with more challenges to come: There is growing appreciation that the old approach [of didactic teaching] is ill-suited to the intellectual, social, motivational, and emotional needs of the new generation (p. 131). This was echoed by Prenskys (2001a) claim that: Our students have changed radically. Todays students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach (emphasis in original) (p. 1).

For those born prior to 1980 Prensky has coined the term digital immigrants (2001a). He claims that this section of the population, which includes most teachers, lacks the technological fluency of the digital natives and finds the skills possessed by them almost completely foreign. The disparity between the technological skills and interests of new students and the limited and unsophisticated technology use by educators is claimed to be creating alienation and disaffection among students (Levin & Arafeh, 2002; Levin, Richardson & Arafeh, 2002; Prensky, 2005a). Prensky characterises this as the biggest single problem facing education today (2001a, p. 3). To address this proclaimed challenge some high-profile commentators are arguing for radical changes in curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and professional development in education.

The debate over digital natives is thus based on two key claims: (1) that a distinct generation of digital natives exists; and (2) that education must fundamentally change to meet the needs of these digital natives. These in turn are based on fundamental assumptions with weak empirical and theoretical foundations, which we will explore in the next sections.

On the distinctive characteristics of digital natives

The claim made for the existence of a generation of digital natives is based on two main assumptions in the literature, which can be summarised as follows:

1. Young people of the digital native generation possess sophisticated knowledge of and skills with information technologies.

2. As a result of their upbringing and experiences with technology, digital natives have particular learning preferences or styles that differ from earlier generations of students.

In the seminal literature on digital natives these assertions are put forward with limited empirical evidence (eg, Tapscott, 1998) or supported by anecdotes and appeals to common-sense beliefs (eg, Prensky, 2001a). Furthermore, this literature has been referenced, often uncritically, in a host of later publications (Gaston, 2006; Gros, 2003; Long, 2005; McHale; 2005; Skiba, 2005). There is, however, an emerging body of research that is beginning to reveal some of the complexity of young peoples computer use and skills.

Information technology use and skills amongst young people

One of the founding assumptions of claims for a generation of digital natives is that young people live their lives completely immersed in technology and are fluent in the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet (Prensky, 2005b, p. 8). Frand (2000) claims that this immersion is so complete that young people do not even consider computers technology anymore. Personal testimonials (eg, McNeely, 2005; Windham, 2005) depicting young peoples online lives as constantly connected appear to confirm such generalisations.

Recent research into how young people in post-compulsory education access and use technology, however, offers a more diverse view of the role of technology in the lives of young people. For example, a survey of 4374 students across 13 institutions in the United States (Kvavik, Caruso & Morgan, 2004) found that the majority of respondents owned personal computers (93.4%) and mobile phones (82%) but a much smaller proportion owned handheld computers (11.9%). The most common technology uses were word processing (99.5%), e-mailing (99.5%) and surfing the Net for pleasure (99.5%). These results do demonstrate high levels of ownership of some technologies by the respondents and high levels of some academic and recreational activities, and their associated skills. The researchers found, however, that only a minority of the students (around 21%) were engaged in creating their own content and multimedia for the Web, and that a significant proportion of students had lower level skills than might be expected of digital natives.

The general thrust of these findings is supported by two recent studies of Australian university students (Kennedy, Krause, Judd, Churchward & Gray, 2006; Oliver & Goerke, 2007) showing similar patterns in access to ICTs. These studies also found that emerging technologies were not commonly used, with only 21% of respondents maintaining a blog, 24% using social networking technologies (Kennedy et al., 2006), and 21.5% downloading podcasts (Oliver & Goerke, 2007). As observed by Kennedy et al. (2006), although many of the students were using a wide range of technologies in their daily lives, there are clearly areas where the use of and familiarity with technology-based tools is far from universal (p. 8). Some of this research (Kennedy et al., 2006; Kvavik et al. 2005) has identified potential differences related to socio-economic status, cultural/ethnic background, gender and discipline specialisation, but these are yet to be comprehensively investigated. Also not yet explored is the relationship between technology access, use and skill, and the attitudinal characteristics and dispositions commonly ascribed to the digital native generation.

Large scale surveys of teenagers and childrens use of the Internet (cf. Lenhart, Madden & Hitlin, 2005; Livingstone & Bober, 2004) reveal high levels of online activity by many school-aged children, particularly for helping with homework and for social communication. The results also suggest that the frequency and nature of childrens Internet use differs between age groups and socio-economic background.

For instance, Internet use by teenagers is far from uniform and depends on the contexts of use, with widely varying experiences according to childrens school and home backgrounds (Lee, 2005). This is further supported by recent research showing family dynamics and the level of domestic affluence to be significant factors influencing the nature of childrens home computer use (Downes, 2002). These findings suggest that technology skills and experience are far from universal amongst young people.

In summary, though limited in scope and focus, the research evidence to date indicates that a proportion of young people are highly adept with technology and rely on it for a range of information gathering and communication activities. However, there also appears to be a significant proportion of young people who do not have the levels of access or technology skills predicted by proponents of the digital native idea. Such generalisations about a whole generation of young people thereby focus attention on technically adept students. With this comes the danger that those less interested and less able will be neglected and that the potential impact of socio-economic and cultural factors will be overlooked. It may be that there is as much variation within the digital native generation as between the generations.

Distinctive digital native learning styles and preferences

The second assumption underpinning the claim for a generation of digital natives is that because of their immersion in technology young people think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors (Prensky, 2001a, p. 1, emphasis in the original). Brown (2000), for example, contends todays kids are always multiprocessing they do several things simultaneously listen to music, talk on the cell phone, and use the computer, all at the same time (p. 13). It is also argued that digital natives are accustomed to learning at high speed, making random connections, processing visual and dynamic information and learning through game-based activities (Prensky, 2001a). It is suggested that because of these factors young people prefer discovery-based learning that allows them to explore and to actively test their ideas and create knowledge (Brown, 2000).

Although such claims may appeal to our common-sense perceptions of a rapidly changing world there is no evidence that multi-tasking is a new phenomenon

exclusive to digital natives. The oft used example of a young person doing homework while engaged in other activities was also applied to earlier generations doing homework in front of the television. Such examples may resonate with our personal observations, but research in cognitive psychology reveals a more complex picture. For example, multi-tasking may not be as beneficial as it appears and can result in a loss of concentration and cognitive overload as the brain shifts between competing stimuli (Rubinstein, Meyer & Evans, 2001; Sweller, 1988).

Nor is there clear evidence that the interactivity prevalent in most recreational computer games is applicable to learning. The enthusiasm for educational games amongst some commentators rests on the possibility of harnessing the high levels of engagement and motivation reported by many game players to motivate students to learn. Although the idea has excited interest for many years and there is some evidence that highly modified game-based approaches can support effective learning (Dede, 2005), research into how to design games that foster deep learning is inadequate (Moreno & Mayer, 2005). Furthermore, the substantially greater popularity of games amongst males compared to females (Kennedy et al., 2006; Kvavik et al. 2005) may limit the appeal of games to all learners. This is not to say that educational games might not be effective, but simply questions the assumption that their apparent popularity in everyday life makes them directly and unproblematically applicable to education.

Generalisations about the ways in which digital natives learn also fail to recognise cognitive differences in young people of different ages, and variation within age groups. Cognitive psychologists have studied the level and range of skills exhibited at different ages (Berk, 2006; Carlson & Sohn, 2000; Mityata & Norman, 1986). The notable differences identified throughout the key stages of infancy, early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence are significant for the digital native debate. For example, research findings have identified the developing capacity of short-term memory (Cowan, Nugent, Elliott, Ponomarev & Saults, 1999). As this capacity increases with age, so too do childrens abilities to scan information more quickly, apply strategies to transform it more rapidly, hold more information within memory and move between tasks more easily. Thus, differences across the developmental

stages need to be considered when making claims about the level of skills young people have and their ability to successfully utilise these when interacting with ICTs.

Furthermore, the claim that there might be a particular learning style or set of learning preferences characteristic of a generation of young people is highly problematic. Learning style theories (cf, Kolb, 1984; Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993) do differentiate between different preferences learners might have and different approaches they might adopt, but these are not seen as static nor are they generalisable to whole populations. Such theories acknowledge significant variability between individuals. Research also shows that students change their approach to learning depending on their perception of what a task requires and their previous success with a particular approach (Biggs, 2003; Ramsden, 1992). To attribute a particular learning style or even general preferences to a whole generation is thus questionable.

In this section, we have examined the key assumptions underlying the claim that the generation of young people born between 1980 and 1994 are digital natives. It is apparent that there is scant evidence to support this idea, and that emerging research challenges notions of a homogenous generation with technical expertise and a distinctive learning style. Instead it suggests variations and differences within this population which may be more significant to educators than similarities.

Some commentators might still argue that regardless of whether the digital native phenomenon is a generational trait or whether it is more due to exposure to ICTs, the education of tech-savvy students is still a major issue for education. This second prominent claim in the debate, that education must fundamentally change to accommodate digital natives interests, talents and preferences, therefore requires exploration.

On arguments for fundamental changes in education

The claim we will now examine is that current educational systems must change in response to a new generation of technically adept young people. Current students have been variously described as disappointed (Oblinger, 2003), dissatisfied (Levin & Arafeh, 2002), and disengaged (Prensky, 2005a). It is also argued that educational institutions at all levels are rapidly becoming outdated and irrelevant, and that there is

urgent need to change what is taught and how (Prensky, 2001a; Tapscott, 1998). For example, Tapscott (1999) urges educators and authorities to [g]ive students the tools, and they will be the single most important source of guidance on how to make their schools relevant and effective places to learn (p. 11). Without such a transformation, commentators warn, we risk failing a generation of students and our institutions face imminent obsolescence.

However, there is little evidence of the serious disaffection and alienation among students claimed by commentators. Downes (2002) study of primary school children (5-12 years old) found that home computer use was more varied than school use and enabled children greater freedom and opportunity to learn by doing. The participants did report feeling limited in the time they were allocated to use computers at school and in the way their use was constrained by teacher-directed learning activities. Similarly, Levin and Arafehs study (2002) revealed students frustrations at their school Internet use being restricted, but crucially also their recognition of the schools in loco parentis role in protecting them from inappropriate material. Selwyns (2006) student participants were also frustrated that their freedom of use was curtailed at school and were well aware of a digital disconnect but displayed a pragmatic acceptance rather than the outright alienation from the school that some commentators would suggest (p. 5).

This evidence points to differences in the ways young people use technology inside and out of school and suggests that school use of the Internet can be frustrating, but there is little basis to conclude that these differences are causing widespread and profound disengagement in learning. Rather, they tell us that technology plays a different role in students home and school lives. This view is supported by research in post-compulsory education indicating that students are not clamouring for greater use of technology (Kvavik et al., 2004; Lohnes & Kinzer, 2007). These studies demonstrate the need to be much more careful about the views we ascribe to young people about technology.

Furthermore, questions must be asked about the relevance to education of the everyday ICTs skills possessed by technically adept young people. For example, it cannot be assumed that knowing how to look up cheats for computer games on the

Internet bears any relation to the skills required to assess a websites relevance for a school project. Indeed, existing research suggests otherwise. When observing students interacting with text obtained from an Internet search, Sutherland-Smith (2002) reported that many were easily frustrated when not instantly gratified in their search for immediate answers and appeared to adopt a snatch and grab philosophy (p. 664). Similarly, Eagleton, Guinee and Langlais (2003) observed middle school students often making hasty, random choices with little thought and evaluation (p. 30).

Such research observes shallow, random, and often passive interactions with text, which raise significant questions about what digital natives can actually do as they engage with and make meaning from such technology. As noted by Lorenzo & Dzuiban (2006), concerns over students lack of critical thinking when using Internet-based information sources imply that students arent as net savvy as we might have assumed (p. 2). This suggests that students everyday technology practices may not be directly applicable to academic tasks, and so education has a vitally important role in fostering information literacies that will support learning.

In summary, calls for a dramatic shift from text-based to multimedia educational resources, the increased use of computer games and simulations, and a move to constructivist approaches that emphasise student knowledge creation, problem solving, and authentic learning (Brown, 2000; Oblinger, 2004; Tapscott, 1999) based solely on the supposed demands and needs of a new generation of digital natives must be treated with caution. This is not to discount other arguments made for changes to education that are based on theory and supported by clear research evidence, but we suggest that the same standards must be met before radical change is made on the basis of the digital native idea.

Discussion

Our analysis of the digital native literature demonstrates a clear mismatch between the confidence with which claims are made and the evidence for such claims. So, why have these claims gained such currency? Put another way, why have these arguments repeatedly been reproduced as if they were supported by empirical evidence? An examination of the nature of the debate itself offers some clues.

Cohens (1972) notion of a moral panic is helpful in understanding the form taken by the digital natives debate. In general, moral panics occur when a particular group in society, such as a youth subculture, is portrayed by the news media as embodying a threat to societal values and norms. The attitudes and practices of the group are subjected to intense media focus which, couched in sensationalist language, amplifies the apparent threat. So, the term moral panic refers to the form the public discourse takes rather than to an actual panic among the populous. The concept of moral panic is widely used in the social sciences to explain how an issue of public concern can achieve a prominence that exceeds the evidence in support of the phenomenon (see Thompson, 1998).

In many ways much of the current debate about digital natives represents an academic form of moral panic. Arguments are often couched in dramatic language, proclaim a profound change in the world and pronounce stark generational differences. These characteristics are exemplified in the followed quote from Prensky (2001a), but are also evident throughout much of the digital natives literature:

Todays students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a singularity - an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. (p. 1)

Such claims coupled with appeals to commonsense and recognisable anecdotes are used to declare an emergency situation, and call for urgent and fundamental change.

Another feature of this academic moral panic is its structure as a series of strongly bounded divides: between a new generation and all previous generations; between the technically adept and those who are not; and between learners and teachers. A further divide is then created between those who believe in the digital native phenomenon and those who question it. Teachers who do not change their practices are labelled as lazy and ineffective (Prensky, 2001a). Those who refuse to recognise what is described as an inevitable change are said to be in denial, resistant and out of touch, and are portrayed as being without legitimate concerns (Tapscott, 1998; Downes, 2007).

Thus, the language of moral panic and the divides established by commentators serve to close down debate, and in doing so allow unevidenced claims to proliferate., Not only does this limit the possibility for understanding the phenomenon, it may also alienate the very people being urged to change. Teachers, administrators and policy-makers have every right to demand evidence and to expect that calls for change be based on well-founded and supported arguments. As is evident from the review in this paper many of the arguments made to date about digital natives currently lack that support.

Without critical rational discussion little progress can be made towards a genuine debate about digital natives. Sceptics can highlight the lack of empirical evidence to dismiss the notion of digital natives as hyperbole. Advocates making claims with little evidence are in danger of repeating a pattern seen throughout the history of educational technology in which new technologies promoted as vehicles for educational reform then fail to meet unrealistic expectations (Cuban, 2001).

Neither dismissive scepticism nor uncritical advocacy enable understanding of whether the phenomenon of digital natives is significant and in what ways education might need to change to accommodate it. As we have discussed in this paper, research is beginning to expose arguments about digital natives to critical enquiry, but much more needs to be done. Close scrutiny of the assumptions underlying the digital natives notion reveals avenues of inquiry that will inform the debate. Such understanding and evidence are necessary precursors to change.

Conclusion

The claim that there is a distinctive new generation of students in possession of sophisticated technology skills and with learning preferences for which education is not equipped to support has excited much recent attention. Proponents arguing that education must change dramatically to cater for the needs of these digital natives have sparked an academic form of a moral panic using extreme arguments that have lacked empirical evidence.

The picture beginning to emerge from research on young peoples relationships with technology is much more complex than the digital native characterisation suggests.

While technology is embedded in their lives, young peoples use and skills are not uniform. There is no evidence of widespread and universal disaffection, or of a distinctly different learning style the like of which has never been seen before. We may live in a highly technologised world, but it is conceivable that it has become so through evolution, rather than revolution. Young people may do things differently, but there are no grounds to consider them alien to us. Education may be under challenge to change, but it is not clear that it is being rejected.

The time has come for a considered and disinterested examination of the assumptions underpinning claims about digital natives such that researchable issues can be identified and dispassionately investigated. This is not to say that young people are not engaged and interested in technology and that technology might not support effective learning. It is to call for considered and rigorous investigation that includes the perspectives of young people and their teachers and that genuinely seeks to understand the situation before proclaiming the need for widespread change.

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Full Link or Reading Resource Below

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Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

By Marc Prensky

From On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001)

2001 Marc Prensky

It is amazing to me how in all the hoopla and debate these days about the decline of

education in the US we ignore the most fundamental of its causes. Our students have

changed radically. Todays students are no longer the people our educational system

was designed to teach.

Todays students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply

changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between

generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call

it a singularity an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is

absolutely no going back. This so-called singularity is the arrival and rapid

dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century.

Todays students K through college represent the first generations to grow up with

this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using

computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other

toys and tools of the digital age. Todays average college grads have spent less than

5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to

mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones

and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives.

It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of

their interaction with it, todays students think and process information fundamentally

differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most

educators suspect or realize. Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain

structures, says Dr. Bruce D. Berry of Baylor College of Medicine. As we shall see in

the next installment, it is very likely that our students brains have physically changed

and are different from ours as a result of how they grew up. But whether or not this is

literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed. I will

get to how they have changed in a minute.

What should we call these new students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for

Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is

Digital Natives. Our students today are all native speakers of the digital language of

computers, video games and the Internet.

So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital

world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many

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or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital

Immigrants.

The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn like all

immigrants, some better than others to adapt to their environment, they always retain,

to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past. The digital immigrant

accent can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather

than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program

itself will teach us to use it. Todays older folk were "socialized" differently from theirkids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later

in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain.

There are hundreds of examples of the digital immigrant accent. They include printing

out your email (or having your secretary print it out for you an even thicker accent);

needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it (rather than

just editing on the screen); and bringing people physically into your office to see an

interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). Im sure you can think of

one or two examples of your own without much effort. My own favorite example is the

Did you get my email? phone call. Those of us who are Digital Immigrants can, and

should, laugh at ourselves and our accent.

But this is not just a joke. Its very serious, because the single biggest problem facing

education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated

language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks

an entirely new language.

This is obvious to the Digital Natives school often feels pretty much as if weve

brought in a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them.

They often cant understand what the Immigrants are saying. What does dial a number

mean, anyway?

Lest this perspective appear radical, rather than just descriptive, let me highlight some of

the issues. Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to

parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than

the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when

networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games

to serious work. (Does any of this sound familiar?)

But Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the

Natives have acquired and perfected though years of interaction and practice. These skills

are almost totally foreign to the Immigrants, who themselves learned and so choose to

teach slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously.

My students just dont _____ like they used to, Digital Immigrant educators grouse. I

cant get them to ____ or to ____. They have no appreciation for _____ or _____ . (Fill

in the blanks, there are a wide variety of choices.)

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Digital Immigrants dont believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV

or listening to music, because they (the Immigrants) cant. Of course not they didnt

practice this skill constantly for all of their formative years. Digital Immigrants think

learning cant (or shouldnt) be fun. Why should they they didnt spend their formative

years learning with Sesame Street.

Unfortunately for our Digital Immigrant teachers, the people sitting in their classes grew

up on the twitch speed of video games and MTV. They are used to the instantaneity of

hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed

messages and instant messaging. Theyve been networked most or all of their lives. They

have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and tell-test instruction.

Digital Immigrant teachers assume that learners are the same as they have always been,

and that the same methods that worked for the teachers when they were students will

work for their students now. But that assumption is no longer valid. Todays learners are

different. Www.hungry.com said a kindergarten student recently at lunchtime. Every

time I go to school I have to power down, complains a high-school student. Is it thatDigital Natives cant pay attention, or that they choose not to? Often from the Natives

point of view their Digital Immigrant instructors make their education not worth paying

attention to compared to everything else they experience and then they blame them for

not paying attention!

And, more and more, they wont take it. I went to a highly ranked college where all the

professors came from MIT, says a former student. But all they did was read from theirtextbooks. I quit. In the giddy internet bubble of a only a few months ago when jobs

were plentiful, especially in the areas where school offered little help this was a real

possibility. But the dot-com dropouts are now returning to school. They will have to

confront once again the Immigrant/Native divide, and have even more trouble given theirrecent experiences. And that will make it even harder to teach them and all the Digital

Natives already in the system in the traditional fashion.

So what should happen? Should the Digital Native students learn the old ways, or should

their Digital Immigrant educators learn the new? Unfortunately, no matter how much the

Immigrants may wish it, it is highly unlikely the Digital Natives will go backwards. In

the first place, it may be impossible their brains may already be different. It also flies

in the face of everything we know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new

culture learn the new language easily, and forcefully resist using the old. Smart adult

immigrants accept that they dont know about their new world and take advantage of

their kids to help them learn and integrate. Not-so-smart (or not-so-flexible) immigrants

spend most of their time grousing about how good things were in the old country.

So unless we want to just forget about educating Digital Natives until they grow up and

do it themselves, we had better confront this issue. And in so doing we need to

reconsider both our methodology and our content.

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First, our methodology. Todays teachers have to learn to communicate in the language

and style of their students. This doesnt mean changing the meaning of what is important,

or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in

parallel, with more random access, among other things. Educators might ask But how

do we teach logic in this fashion? While its not immediately clear, we do need to figure

it out.

Second, our content. It seems to me that after the digital singularity there are now two

kinds of content: Legacy content (to borrow the computer term for old systems) and

Future content.

Legacy content includes reading, writing, arithmetic, logical thinking, understanding

the writings and ideas of the past, etc all of our traditional curriculum. It is of course

still important, but it is from a different era. Some of it (such as logical thinking) will

continue to be important, but some (perhaps like Euclidean geometry) will become less

so, as did Latin and Greek.

Future content is to a large extent, not surprisingly, digital and technological. But

while it includes software, hardware, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, etc. it also

includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them.

This Future content is extremely interesting to todays students. But how many Digital

Immigrants are prepared to teach it? Someone once suggested to me that kids should

only be allowed to use computers in school that they have built themselves. Its a

brilliant idea that is very doable from the point of view of the students capabilities. But

who could teach it?

As educators, we need to be thinking about how to teach both Legacy and Future content

in the language of the Digital Natives. The first involves a major translation and change

of methodology; the second involves all that PLUS new content and thinking. Its not

actually clear to me which is harder learning new stuff or learning new ways to do

old stuff. I suspect its the latter.

So we have to invent, but not necessarily from scratch. Adapting materials to the

language of Digital Natives has already been done successfully. My own preference for

teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most

serious content. After all, its an idiom with which most of them are totally familiar.

Not long ago a group of professors showed up at my company with new computer-aided

design (CAD) software they had developed for mechanical engineers. Their creation was

so much better that what people were currently using that they had assumed the entire

engineering world would quickly adopt it. But instead they encountered a lot of

resistance, due in large part to the products extremely steep learning curve the software

contained hundreds of new buttons, options and approaches to master.

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Their marketers, however, had a brilliant idea. Observing that the users of CAD software

were almost exclusively male engineers between 20 and 30, they said Why not make the

learning into a video game! So we invented and created for them a computer game in the

first person shooter style of the consumer games Doom and Quake, called The Monkey

Wrench Conspiracy. Its player becomes an intergalactic secret agent who has to save a

space station from an attack by the evil Dr. Monkey Wrench. The only way to defeat him

is to use the CAD software, which the learner must employ to build tools, fix weapons,

and defeat booby traps. There is one hour of game time, plus 30 tasks, which can take

from 15 minutes to several hours depending on ones experience level.

Monkey Wrench has been phenomenally successful in getting young people interested in

learning the software. It is widely used by engineering students around the world, with

over 1 million copies of the game in print in several languages. But while the game was

easy for my Digital Native staff to invent, creating the content turned out to be more

difficult for the professors, who were used to teaching courses that started with Lesson 1

the Interface. We asked them instead to create a series of graded tasks into which the

skills to be learned were embedded. The professors had made 5-10 minute movies to

illustrate key concepts; we asked them to cut them to under 30 seconds. The professors

insisted that the learners to do all the tasks in order; we asked them to allow random

access. They wanted a slow academic pace, we wanted speed and urgency (we hired a

Hollywood script writer to provide this.) They wanted written instructions; we wanted

computer movies. They wanted the traditional pedagogical language of learning

objectives, mastery, etc. (e.g. in this exercise you will learn); our goal was to

completely eliminate any language that even smacked of education.

In the end the professors and their staff came through brilliantly, but because of the large

mind-shift required it took them twice as long as we had expected. As they saw the

approach working, though, the new Digital Native methodology became their model

for more and more teaching both in and out of games and their development speed

increased dramatically.

Similar rethinking needs to be applied to all subjects at all levels. Although most attempts

at edutainment to date have essentially failed from both the education and

entertainment perspective, we can and will, I predict do much better.

In math, for example, the debate must no longer be about whether to use calculators and

computers they are a part of the Digital Natives world but rather how to use them to

instill the things that are useful to have internalized, from key skills and concepts to the

multiplication tables. We should be focusing on future math approximation, statistics,

binary thinking.

In geography which is all but ignored these days there is no reason that a generation

that can memorize over 100 Pokmon characters with all their characteristics, history and

evolution cant learn the names, populations, capitals and relationships of all the 101

nations in the world. It just depends on how it is presented.

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants 2001 Marc Prensky

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We need to invent Digital Native methodologies for all subjects, at all levels, using ourstudents to guide us. The process has already begun I know college professors

inventing games for teaching subjects ranging from math to engineering to the Spanish

Inquisition. We need to find ways of publicizing and spreading their successes.

A frequent objection I hear from Digital Immigrant educators is this approach is great

for facts, but it wouldnt work for my subject. Nonsense. This is just rationalization

and lack of imagination. In my talks I now include thought experiments where I invite

professors and teachers to suggest a subject or topic, and I attempt on the spot to

invent a game or other Digital Native method for learning it. Classical philosophy?

Create a game in which the philosophers debate and the learners have to pick out what

each would say. The Holocaust? Create a simulation where students role-play the

meeting at Wannsee, or one where they can experience the true horror of the camps, as

opposed to the films like Schindlers List. Its just dumb (and lazy) of educators not to

mention ineffective to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way

is the only way to teach, and that the Digital Natives language is not as capable as theirown of encompassing any and every idea.

So if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives i.e. all their

students they will have to change. Its high time for them to stop their grousing, and as

the Nike motto of the Digital Native generation says, Just do it! They will succeed in

the long run and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators

support them.

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants 2001 Marc Prensky

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Part II:

Do They Really Think Differently?

By Marc Prensky

From On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vo l. 9 No. 6, December 2001)

2001 Marc Prensky

Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures.

-Dr. Bruce D. Berry, Baylor College of Medicine

Our children today are being socialized in a way that is vastly different from theirparents. The numbers are overwhelming: over 10,000 hours playing videogames, over

200,000 emails and instant messages sent and received; over 10,000 hours talking on

digital cell phones; over 20,000 hours watching TV (a high percentage fast speed MTV),

over 500,000 commercials seenall before the kids leave college. And, maybe, at the

very most, 5,000 hours of book reading. These are todays Digital Native students. 1

In Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part I, I discussed how the differences between

our Digital Native students and their Digital Immigrant teachers lie at the root of a great

many of todays educational problems. I suggested that Digital Natives brains are likely

physically different as a result of the digital input they received growing up. And I

submitted that learning via digital games is one good way to reach Digital Natives in theirnative language.

Here I present evidence for why I think this is so. It comes from neurobiology, social

psychology, and from studies done on children using games for learning.

Neuroplasticity

Although the vast majority of todays educators and teachers grew up with the

understanding that the human brain doesnt physically change based on stimulation it

receives from the outsideespecially after the age of 3 it turns out that that view is, in

fact, incorrect.

Based on the latest research in neurobiology, there is no longer any question that

stimulation of various kinds actually changes brain structures and affects the way people

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think, and that these transformations go on throughout life. The brain is, to an extent not

at all understood or believed to be when Baby Boomers were growing up, massively

plastic. It can be, and is, constantly reorganized. (Although the popular term rewired is

somewhat misleading, the overall idea is rightthe brain changes and organizes itself

differently based on the inputs it receives.) The old idea that we have a fixed number of

brain cells that die off one by one has been replaced by research showing that our supply

of brain cells is replenished constantly. 2 The brain constantly reorganizes itself all ourchild and adult lives, a phenomenon technically known as neuroplasticity.

One of the earliest pioneers in this field of neurological research found that rats in

enriched environments showed brain changes compared with those in impoverished

environments after as little as two weeks. Sensory areas of their brains were thicker,

other layers heavier. Changes showed consistent overall growth, leading to the

conclusion that the brain maintains its plasticity for life. 3

Other experiments leading to similar conclusions include the following:

Ferrets brains were physically rewired, with inputs from the eyes switched to wherethe hearing nerves went and vice versa. Their brains changed to accommodate the

new inputs. 4

Imaging experiments have shown that when bind people learn Braille, visual areas

of their brains lit up. Similarly, deaf people use their auditory cortex to read signs. 5

Scans of brains of people who tapped their fingers in a complicated sequence that

they had practiced for weeks showed a larger area of motor cortex becoming

activated then when they performed sequences they hadnt practiced. 6

Japanese subjects were able learn to reprogram their circuitry for distinguishing

ra from la, a skill they forget soon after birth because their language doesnt

require it. 7

Researchers found that an additional language learned later in life goes into a

different place in the brain than the language or languages learned as children. 8

Intensive reading instruction experiments with students aged 10 and up appeared to

create lasting chemical changes in key areas of the subjects brains. 9

A comparison of musicians versus nonplayers brains via magnetic resonance imaging

showed a 5 percent greater volume in the musicians cerebellums, ascribed to

adaptations in the brains structure resulting from intensive musical training and

practice. 10

We are only at the very beginning of understanding and applying brain plasticity

research. The goal of many who aresuch as the company Scientific Learningis

neuroscience-based education. 11

Malleability

Social psychology also provides strong evidence that ones thinking patterns change

depending on ones experiences. Until very recently Western philosophers and

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psychologists took it for granted that the same basic processes underlie all human

thought. While cultural differences might dictate what people think about, the strategies

and processes of thought, which include logical reasoning and a desire to understand

situations and events in linear terms of cause and effect, were assumed to be the same for

everyone. However this, too, appears to be wrong.

Research by social psychologists 12 shows that people who grow up in different cultures

do not just think about different things, they actually think differently. The environment

and culture in which people are raised affects and even determines many of their thought

processes.

We used to think that everybody uses categories in the same way, that logic plays the

same kind of role for everyone in the understanding of everyday life, that memory,

perception, rule application and so on are the same, says one. But were now arguing

that cognitive processes themselves are just far more malleable than mainstream

psychology assumed. 13

We now know that brains that undergo different developmental experiences develop

differently, and that people who undergo different inputs from the culture that surrounds

them think differently. And while we havent yet directly observed Digital Natives

brains to see whether they are physically different (such as musicians appear to be) the

indirect evidence for this is extremely strong.

However, brains and thinking patterns do not just change overnight. A key finding of

brain plasticity research is that brains do not reorganize casually, easily, or arbitrarily.

Brain reorganization takes place only when the animal pays attention to the sensory

input and to the task. 14 It requires very hard work.15 Biofeedback requires upwards

of 50 sessions to produce results. 16 Scientific Learnings Fast ForWard program requires

students to spend 100 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 5 to 10 weeks to create desired

changes, because it takes sharply focused attention to rewire a brain. 17

Several hours a day, five days a week, sharply focused attentiondoes that remind you

of anything? Oh, yesvideo games! That is exactly what kids have been doing ever

since Pong arrived in 1974. They have been adjusting or programming their brains to the

speed, interactivity, and other factors in the games, much as boomers brains were

programmed to accommodate television, and literate mans brains were reprogrammed to

deal with the invention of written language and reading (where the brain had to be

retrained to deal with things in a highly linear way.) 18 Reading does not just happen, it

is a terrible struggle. 19 Reading [has] a different neurology to it than the things that arebuilt into our brain, like spoken language. 20 One of the main focuses of schools for the

hundreds of years since reading became a mass phenomenon has been retraining ourspeech-oriented brains to be able to read. Again, the training involves several hours a

day, five days a week, and sharply focused attention.

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Of course just when wed figured out (more or less) how to retrain brains for reading,

they were retrained again by television. And now things have changed yet again, and ourchildren are furiously retraining their brains in even newer ways, many of which are

antithetical to our older ways of thinking.

Children raised with the computer think differently from the rest of us. They develop

hypertext minds. They leap around. Its as though their cognitive structures were

parallel, not sequential. 21 Linear thought processes that dominate educational systems

now can actually retard learning for brains developed through game and Web-surfing

processes on the computer. 22

Some have surmised that teenagers use different parts of their brain and think in different

ways than adults when at the computer. 23 We now know that it goes even furthertheirbrains are almost certainly physiologically different. But these differences, most

observers agree, are less a matter of kind than a difference of degree. For example as a

result of repeated experiences, particular brain areas are larger and more highly

developed, and others are less so.

For example, thinking skills enhanced by repeated exposure to computer games and other

digital media include reading visual images as representations of three-dimensional space

(representational competence), multidimensional visual-spatial skills, mental maps,

mental paper folding (i.e. picturing the results of various origami-like folds in your

mind without actually doing them), inductive discovery (i.e. making observations,

formulating hypotheses and figuring out the rules governing the behavior of a dynamic

representation), attentional deployment (such as monitoring multiple locations

simultaneously), and responding faster to expected and unexpected stimuli. 24

While these individual cognitive skills may not be new, the particular combination and

intensity is. We now have a new generation with a very different blend of cognitive

skills than its predecessorsthe Digital Natives.

What About Attention Spans?

We hear teachers complain so often about the Digital Natives attention spans that the

phrase the attention span of a gnat has become a clich. But is it really true?

Sure they have short attention spansfor the old ways of learning, says a professor. 25

Their attention spans are not short for games, for example, or for anything else that

actually interests them. As a result of their experiences Digital Natives crave

interactivityan immediate response to their each and every action. Traditional

schooling provides very little of this compared to the rest of their world (one study

showed that students in class get to ask a question every 10 hours) 26 So it generally isnt

that Digital Natives cant pay attention, its that they choose not to.

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants 2001 Marc Prensky

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Research done for Sesame Street reveals that children do not actually watch television

continuously, but in bursts. They tune in just enough to get the gist and be sure it

makes sense. In one key experiment, half the children were shown the program in a room

filled with toys. As expected, the group with toys was distracted and watched the show

only about 47 percent of the time as opposed to 87 percent in the group without toys. But

when the children were tested for how much of the show they remembered and

understood, the scores were exactly the same. We were led to the conclusion that the 5-

year-olds in the toys group were attending quite strategically, distributing their attention

between toy play and viewing so that they looked at what was for them the most

informative part of the program. The strategy was so effective that the children could

gain no more from increased attention. 27

What Have We Lost?

Still, we often hear from teachers about increasing problems their students have with

reading and thinking. What about this? Has anything been lost in the Digital Nativesreprogramming process?

One key area that appears to have been affected is reflection. Reflection is what enables

us, according to many theorists, to generalize, as we create mental models from ourexperience. It is, in many ways, the process of learning from experience. In ourtwitch-speed world, there is less and less time and opportunity for reflection, and this

development concerns many people. One of the most interesting challenges and

opportunities in teaching Digital Natives is to figure out and invent ways to include

reflection and critical thinking in the learning (either built into the instruction or through

a process of instructor-led debriefing) but still do it in the Digital Native language. We

can and must do more in this area.

Digital Natives accustomed to the twitch-speed, multitasking, random-access, graphicsfirst,

active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of their video games, MTV, and

Internet are bored by most of todays education, well meaning as it may be. But worse,

the many skills that new technologies have actually enhanced (e.g., parallel processing,

graphics awareness, and random access)which have profound implications for theirlearningare almost totally ignored by educators.

The cognitive differences of the Digital Natives cry out for new approaches to education

with a better fit. And, interestingly enough, it turns out that one of the few structures

capable of meeting the Digital Natives changing learning needs and requirements is the

very video and computer games they so enjoy. This is why Digital Game-Based

Learning is beginning to emerge and thrive.

But Does It Work?

Of course many criticize todays learning games, and there is much to criticize. But if

some of these games dont produce learning it is not because they are games, or because

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants 2001 Marc Prensky

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the concept of game-based learning is faulty. Its because those particular games are

badly designed. There is a great deal of evidence that childrens learning games that are

well designed do produce learning, and lots of it by and while engaging kids.

While some educators refer to games as sugar coating, giving that a strongly negative

connotationand often a sneerit is a big help to the Digital Natives. After all, this is a

medium they are very familiar with and really enjoy.

Elementary school, when you strip out the recesses and the lunch and the in-between

times, actually consists of about three hours of instruction time in a typical 9 to 3 day. 28

So assuming, for example, that learning games were only 50% educational, if you could

get kids to play them for six hours over a weekend, youd effectively add a day a week to

their schooling! Six hours is far less than a Digital Native would typically spend over a

weekend watching TV and playing videogames. The trick, though, is to make the

learning games compelling enough to actually be used in their place. They must be real

games, not just drill with eye-candy, combined creatively with real content.

The numbers back this up. The Lightspan Partnership, which created PlayStation games

for curricular reinforcement, conducted studies in over 400 individual school districts and

a meta-analysis as well. Their findings were increases in vocabulary and language arts

of 24 and 25 percent respectively over the control groups, while the math problem

solving and math procedures and algorithms scores were 51 and 30 percent higher. 29

Click Health, which makes games to help kids self-manage their health issues, did

clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health. They found, in the case of

diabetes, that kids playing their games (as compared to a control group playing a pinball

game) showed measurable gains in self-efficacy, communication with parents and

diabetes self-care. And more importantly, urgent doctor visits for diabetes-related

problems declined 77 percent in the treatment group. 30

Scientific Learnings Fast ForWard game-based program for retraining kids with reading

problems conducted National Field Trials using 60 independent professionals at 35 sites

across the US and Canada. Using standardized tests, each of the 35 sites reported

conclusive validation of the programs effectiveness, with 90 percent of the children

achieving significant gains in one or more tested areas. 31

Again and again its the same simple story. Practicetime spent on learningworks.

Kids dont like to practice. Games capture their attention and make it happen. And of

course they must be practicing the right things, so design is important.

The US military, which has a quarter of a million 18-year-olds to educate every year, is a

big believer in learning games as a way to reach their Digital Natives. They know theirvolunteers expect this: If we dont do things that way, theyre not going to want to be in

our environment. 32

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants 2001 Marc Prensky

_____________________________________________________________________________

Whats more, they've observed it working operationally in the field. Weve seen it time

and time again in flying airplanes, in our mission simulators. Practical-minded

Department of Defense trainers are perplexed by educators who say We dont know that

educational technology workswe need to do some more studies. We KNOW the

technology works, they retort. We just want to get on with using it. 33

__________

So, todays neurobiologists and social psychologists agree that brains can and do change

with new input. And todays educators with the most crucial learning missions

teaching the handicapped and the militaryare already using custom designed computer

and video games as an effective way of reaching Digital Natives. But the bulk of todays

tradition-bound educational establishment seem in no hurry to follow their lead.

Yet these educators know something is wrong, because they are not reaching their Digital

Native students as well as they reached students in the past. So they face an important

choice.

On the one hand, they can choose to ignore their eyes, ears and intuition, pretend the

Digital Native/Digital Immigrant issue does not exist, and continue to use their suddenlymuch-

less-effective traditional methods until they retire and the Digital Natives take over.

Or they can chose instead to accept the fact that they have become Immigrants into a new

Digital world, and to look to their own creativity, their Digital Native students, theirsympathetic administrators and other sources to help them communicate their stillvaluableknowledge and wisdom in that worlds new language.

The route they ultimately chooseand the education of their Digital Native students

depends very much on us.

Marc Prensky is the author of Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill 2001) and

Founder and CEO of Games2Train. The Monkey Wrench Conspiracy CD can be

purchased for $10 at www.games2train.com/site/html/tutor.html. Marc can be reached

at marc@games2train.com.

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants 2001 Marc Prensky

_____________________________________________________________________________

Notes

1. These numbers are intended purely as order of magnitude approximations; they obviously vary widely

for individuals. They were arrived at in the following ways ( Note: I am very interested in any additional

data anyone has on this):

Videogames: Average play time: 1.5 hours/day (Source: Interactive Videogames, Mediascope, June

1966.) It is likely to be higher five years later, so 1.8 x 365 x 15 years = 9,855 hours.

E-mails and Instant Messages: Average 40 per day x 365 x 15 years = 219, 000. This is not unrealistic

even for pre-teens in just one instant messaging connection there may be over 100 exchanges per day

and most people do multiple connections.

TV: Television in the Home, 1998: Third Annual Survey of Parent and Children, Annenburg Policy

Center, June 22, 1998, gives the number of TV hours watched per day as 2.55. M. Chen, in the Smart

Parents Guide to Kids TV, (1994) gives the number as 4 hours/day. Taking the average, 3.3 hrs/day x

365 days x 18 years = 21,681.

Commercials: There are roughly 18 30-second commercials during a TV hour. 18 commercials/hour

x 3.3 hours/day x 365 days x 20 years (infants love commercials) = 433,620.

Reading: Eric Leuliette, a voracious (and meticulous) reader who has listed online every book he has

ever read (www.csr.utexas.edu/personal/leuliette/fw_table_home.html), read about 1300 books through

college. If we take 1300 books x 200 pages per book x 400 words per page, we get 10,400,000,000

words. Read at 400 words/that gives 260,000 minutes, or 4,333 hours. This represents a little over 3

hours/book. Although others may read more slowly, most have read far fewer books than Leuliette.

2. Paul Perry in American Way, May 15, 2000.

3. Renate Numella Caine and Geoffrey Caine, Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain,

Addison-Wesley, 1991, p.31.

4. Dr. Mriganka Sur, Nature, April 20, 2000.

5. Sandra Blakeslee, New York Times, April 24, 2000.

6. Leslie Ungerlieder, National Institutes of Health.

7. James McLelland, University of Pittsburgh.

8. Cited in Inferential Focus Briefing, September 30, 1997.

9. Virginia Berninger, University of Washington, American Journal of Neuroradiology, May 2000.

10. Dr. Mark Jude Tramano of Harvard. Reported in USA Today December 10, 1998.

11. Newsweek, January 1, 2000.

12. They include Alexandr Romanovich Luria (1902-1977), Soviet pioneer in neuropsychology, author of

The Human Brain and Psychological Processes (1963), and, more recently, Dr. Richard Nisbett of the

University of Michigan.

13. Quoted in Erica Goode, How Culture Molds Habits of Thought, New York Times, August 8, 2000.

14. John T. Bruer, The Myth of the First Three Years, The Free Press, 1999, p. 155.

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants 2001 Marc Prensky

_____________________________________________________________________________

15. G. Ried Lyon, a neuropsychologist who directs reading research funded by the National Institutes of

Health, quoted in Frank D. Roylance Intensive Teaching Changes Brain, SunSpot, Marylands

Online Community, May 27, 2000.

16. Alan T. Pope, research psychologist, Human Engineering Methods, NASA. Private communication.

17. Time, July 5, 1999.

18. The Economist, December 6, 1997.

19. Kathleen Baynes, neurology researcher, University of California Davis, quoted in Robert Lee Hotz

In Art of Language, the Brain Matters Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1998.

20. Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga, neuroscientist at Dartmouth College quoted in Robert Lee Hotz In Art of

Language, the Brain Matters Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1998.

21. William D. Winn, Director of the Learning Center, Human Interface Technology Laboratory,

University of Washington, quoted in Moore, Inferential Focus Briefing (see 22).

22. Peter Moore, Inferential Focus Briefing, September 30, 1997.

23. Ibid.

24. Patricia Marks Greenfield, Mind and Media, The Effects of Television, Video Games and Computers,

Harvard University Press, 1984.

25. Dr. Edward Westhead, professor of biochemistry (retired), University of Massachusetts.

26. Graesser, A.C., & Person, N.K. (1994) Question asking during tutoring,. American Educational

Research Journal, 31, 104-107.

27. Elizabeth Lorch, psychologist, Amherst College, quoted in Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point:

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Little Brown & Company, 2000, p. 101.

28. John Kernan, President, The Lightspan Partnership. Personal communication.

29. Evaluation of Lightspan. Research Results from 403 schools and over 14,580 students, February

2000, CD ROM.

30. Debra A. Lieberman, Health Education Video Games for Children and Adolescents: Theory, Design

and Research Findings, paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communications

Association, Jerusalem, 1998.

31. Scientific Learning Corporation, National Field Trial Results (pamphlet.) See also Merzenich et al.,

Temporal Processing Deficits of language-Learning Impaired Children Ameliorated by Training and

Tallal, et al., Language Comprehension in Language Learning Impaired Children Improved with

Acoustically Modified Speech, in Science, Vol. 271, January 5, 1996, pp 27-28 & 77-84.

32. Michael Parmentier, Director, Office of Readiness and Training, Department of Defense, The

Pentagon. Private briefing.

33. Don Johnson, Office of Readiness and Training, Department of Defense, The Pentagon. Private

briefing.

E-Safety Commission. (2021).Screen time and screen practices bookletFull Link or Reading Resource Below

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401875322259000701749top00

Early years online safety for under 5s 1

Sahlberg, P., & Graham, A. (2021).Children own around 3 digital devices on average, and few can spend a day without them. The Conversation

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https://theconversation.com/children-own-around-3-digital-devices-on-average-and-few-can-spend-a-day-without-them-159546ACARA ( n.d). Australian Curriculum:Digital TechnologiesFull Link or Reading Resource Below

HYPERLINK "https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/technologies/digital-technologies/?year=12983&strand=Digital+Technologies+Knowledge+and+Understanding&strand=Digital+Technologies+Processes+and+Production+Skills&capability=ignore&capability=Literacy&capability=Numeracy&capability=Information+and+Communication+Technology+%28ICT%29+Capability&capability=Critical+and+Creative+Thinking&capability=Personal+and+Social+Capability&capability=Ethical+Understanding&capability=Intercultural+Understanding&priority=ignore&priority=Aboriginal+and+Torres+Strait+Islander+Histories+and+Cultures&priority=Asia+and+Australia%E2%80%99s+Engagement+with+Asia&priority=Sustainability&elaborations=true&elaborations=false&scotterms=false&isFirstPageLoad=false" https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/technologies/digital-technologies/?year=12983&strand=Digital+Technologies+Knowledge+and+Understanding&strand=Digital+Technologies+Processes+and+Production+Skills&capability=ignore&capability=Literacy&capability=Numeracy&capability=Information+and+Communication+Technology+%28ICT%29+Capability&capability=Critical+and+Creative+Thinking&capability=Personal+and+Social+Capability&capability=Ethical+Understanding&capability=Intercultural+Understanding&priority=ignore&priority=Aboriginal+and+Torres+Strait+Islander+Histories+and+Cultures&priority=Asia+and+Australia%E2%80%99s+Engagement+with+Asia&priority=Sustainability&elaborations=true&elaborations=false&scotterms=false&isFirstPageLoad=false

Undheim, M.(2021).Children and teachers engaging together with digital technology in early childhood education and care institutions: a literature review,European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, DOI:10.1080/1350293X.2021.1971730 United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child [UN CRC]. (2021).General Comment No. 25 on childrens rights in relation to the digital environmentVidal-Hall, C., Flewitt, R., & Wyse, D. (2020).Early childhood practitioner beliefs about digital media: integrating technology into a child-centred classroom environment. European early childhood education research journal,28(2), 167-181.

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