Digital Naitvies

On wednesday we read a short piece about "Digital Natives" and "Digital Immigrants". This was a rather interesting story on this generation and the technology revolution, and the prior generations, or the "old school". Mentioned were how students and professors interact in learning. It was suggested that "today's students are no longer the people our educational system is designed to teach" . It went on to say that todays generation has been surrounded by video games, tv, cell phones and other electronics and spend more time playing video games than reading. A professor of medicine suggested that "our students brains have physically changed", and just think differently than before. A main point in the article is that the professors now are having a hard time teaching "a population that speaks an entirely new language".

I agreed with most of the things mentioned in the article, but I did not agree that "legacy" content (math, reading, writing, logic) should become less important than "future" content (ethics, politics, sociology, languages). I think Legacy content is still the foundation for schools and should not be brushed aside. I have not seen or experience a problem with the way classes are taught or the way lectures are conducted. I still prefer to write out notes rather than typing. I think the interaction between the students and teachers is very important in classes -- especially the "cps" unit we have here at wayne.... it implements new ways of thinking and learning during lectures through these interactions, rather than just the teacher talking the whole lecture. I also think that we as a whole have become far less social as a result of cell phones, text messaging, myspace, facebook, AIM, etc. I can remember being a kid and going to my neighbors house ringing the doorbell, talkin to their parents, and all that fun stuff. Then, later when I got a cell phone I used to call up my friends to talk or hang out, and now it's gotten to a point where I don't even call my friends much, I just text message instead. The interactions have become less emotional in a sense where talking to someone online and in person are two completely different methods of communication and I can only imagine what 5 years from now technology will bring us.