Thursday, August 20, 2009

Digital Native

Wikipedia defines digital native as "a person for whom digital technologies already existed when they were born, and hence has grown up with digital technology such as computers, the Internet, mobile phones and MP3s." A site www.digitalnative.org is even created for Digital Natives which is "an interdisciplinary collaboration of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen." The aim of the said effort is "to understand and support young people as they grow up in a digital age."

Prensky (2001) talks about Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants eight years ago. He claims that "today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach." To him the most useful designation he has found for them is Digital Natives. He said that, "Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet." He distinguished the difference of digital natives from "those who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in their lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology." He called them Digital Immigrants.

The Digital Natives Organization said, "Are all youth digital natives? Simply put, no. Though we frame digital natives as a population “born digital,” not all youth are digital natives."

Full Sail University just emailed me an information about Education Media Design & Technology degree, maybe for me to know that there is a Master’s Degree Program Online on how to learn to be an innovator by creating podcasts, online courses, video presentations and to also study alternative teaching tools such as video games, music, and multimedia, to help enrich classroom experience.

I am just lucky that with De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde's goal to be a truly learner-centered learning institution, I took my second Masteral Degree in Learning and Teaching (MaLT 1st and pioneer batch) in De La Salle University and wrote an action research on the ways of creating a learner-centered learning environment as supported by technology. I incorporated an online component (web-based modules) in the face-to-face or classroom-based instruction in my Dynarel (Church and Sacraments) class.