Whether a twenty-first century learner is a digital native or a digital immigrant (Prensky, 2001) it can be agreed that in today's world that digital technology has changed the way children are and how education should be implemented (Prensky, 2001.)
Digital natives have grown up with technology. It has been part of their normal everyday lives, causing today's students to think and process information quite differently compared to digital immigrants (Prensky, 2001.) For digital immigrants, it is like learning a new language, but they have retained an accent. The accent being traits such as printing out everything including emails, texts, websites rather than reading or editing on screen (Prensky, 2001.)
With this in mind, the majority of teachers currently teaching in schools would be digital immigrants, thus can be depicted as speaking an outdated language and could be "struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language" (Prensky, 2001. pp. 2) which is quite obvious to the digital natives. Therefore teachers need to be knowledgeable on current technologies. They need to be able to engage today's students by including the use of ITC's in their learning and by giving the students a creative component, choices and worthwhile goals (Prensky, 2005.)
References:
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Accessed July 22, 2010 from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Prensky, M. (2005). Engage me or enrage me: What today’s learners demand. Accessed July 22, 2010 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf
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