W8 - Digital Immigration: Article 2

This article is a strong primary source as it is written by someone at the forefront of the subject. The author read in the subject and this work was published in a 2005/2006 journal and therefore the work is relevant and quite up-to-date. The article is re-produced but easy-to-read and clearly referenced so the original article can be found. The article is very much based on the author's own thoughts, only referencing two articles - one of them being his own.

He recounts his previous work and states that today's students are so different from us that 20th century knowledge and training cannot be used to best educate them, therefore digital immigrant-teachers must engage in a 21st century way in the same way that digital natives do, using one-to-one teaching to highlight an individual's skills, or self-chosen learning groups of children and their peers.

The article's pleads for the digital immigrants to listen to the digital natives and their suggestions for direction in how to educated them effectively. Computers play a large part of this as statistics from US teachers are quoted as saying computers affect their teaching methods "to some extent" (86%) or "a great deal" (55.6%).

I feel this article is somewhat one-sided and plays down the experience of digital immigrants. Indeed, much can be taught on a computer and through new ways of learning, but the basic features of life - eg. socialising, love and interaction are clearly threatened by the isolation that computers offer, and only experience teaches.