The Second Post - Digital Natives

Technology is becoming more widely used in our society. It would be foolish to disregard it entirely in the classroom.

Teachers may be influenced to integrate technology into the classroom to make learning familiar and exciting for their students. Technology is something students are already familiar with which motivates them to engage in class activities. Because they use technology so often in their lives outside school, being exposed to technology in the classroom as well can help them make connections between concepts taught in class to their real life. Using technology in the classroom is also exciting and is proven to grab students’ attentions. Teachers may also implement technology in their classrooms for the wide range of teaching resources available now.

Students may use technology in the classroom because of how convenient it is. Note taking suddenly becomes faster and more efficient when doing it on a device. They may also use technology to better understand the concepts they learn in school. If they have a hard time grasping something, there are so many resources available like videos and activities online to help fully learn concepts.

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The term “digital native” is used to describe the generations of kids who grew up in this age of accessible digital media. As opposed to “digital immigrants” who grew up without the wide range of media available today and are now learning how to integrate it into their lives.

Digital native to me means those of us who have been exposed to technology so often in our lives that it is now a second nature. Implementing any new technology into our lives is almost effortless because of our constant exposure to it. For some that may be a negative label on our generation, but I think being digital native means we can easily adapt to our constantly changing world because we have been adapting to constant growth in technology.

Some of my high school teachers growing up who were digital immigrants took a little longer to learn how to integrate technology into their classrooms, sometimes needing their students to help them figure it out. As a visual learner, the more my teachers implemented technology in their teaching, like with visual aids on computers or videos to explain concepts, it impacted my learning experience helping me easily recall the information I just learned because I had a visual I could refer to in my head.

I anticipate that my students in my future classroom will be even more exposed and familiar with technology as the world advances. At one point, us digital natives now may someday become the digital immigrants because we didn’t grow up with the same advanced technology and the kids of the future will. However, I hope to continue learning about technology throughout my life and implement it into my classroom to reinforce deeper learning in them as it did for me when I was in school.