Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

I really enjoyed the Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article, and I agree with the author 100%; teachers need to update their methods. I see myself more as a Digital Native than an Immigrant because I grew up with computers, internet, and video games. I think it is really important that teachers start finding ways to teach the traditional subjects in a way that their Digital Native students will understand. “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, it’s an idiom with which most of them are totally familiar.” I agree with the author that games are a great way to learn and practice skills, but there are also great websites that provide students with wonderful visuals. Scholastic is one of my favorite websites for teaching because it allows your students interact with their learning. For example there is a unit on the Scholastic site called The First Thanksgiving that shows students what it was like to be on the Mayflower coming to America and then how life was when they arrived. With all of the great resources the internet provides us with, today’s’ teachers really have no excuse not to teach in a Digital Native friendly way.