Digital Status

I would consider myself a digital native with a mix of immigrant. While watching the video it mentioned using cell phones to learn. I highly disagree with this statement. How can you prove that the student is doing what you asked them to do and not just texting their friend next door? I think that technology is highly important to incorporate into all classrooms and using you tube videos to view a topic you are covering and show how it happens in real life is very interesting to the students and they will love this.
I would consider my self a mix between immigrant and native because although I have grown up in the digital native movement, I consider myself technology challenged at times. I have a basic working knowledge of technology and how to use it but everyday I learn something new about it. I know my students will know more about some forms of technology and I will be feeding off them at times for help. When reading Engage Me or Enrage Me a quote that stuck in my mind was “Many of today’s third-graders have
multiple e-mail addresses.” I was shocked to read this statistic because thinking about to when I was in 3rd grade I didn’t even know what e-mail was.
“What does “dial” a number mean, anyways?” was a quote from the text called Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. I can relate to this and I know this is the thinking of our future students. I feel the same way at times. I have gotten so dependent on my cell phone I don’t even know 90% of the phone numbers in my phone without it. When I was younger I always had to dial numbers into a phone and I thought it took so long to do because now anyone is just a push of the button away.
When I was in high school we had access to all different technology and it was the same for college. Last year when the Smart boards were incorporated into the classroom it was a new toy that took lots of practice to know how to use. My instructors had very different experiences with the board, my older teacher who grew up a digital immigrant and my younger teacher who grew up a digital native. The digital native took to the smart board well and never had a problem and the digital immigrant never was able to grasp how to use the board; even after a whole year to work with it.
Video games are a large part of out society now. “Why not make the learning into a video game!” was a quote from Digital Native, Digital Immigrant. This is how our future students think and to find way to integrate video games into learning the more the students will pay attention. I know that with PE, students can get their heart rate up and have fun with dance dance revolution or wii fit. These articles have really opened my eyes to new information but most of this I already knew. The video was great to sum everything up. It is inevitable that I will be using technology in my classroom, I will use as much as my lessons will allow me.