How+are+These+Students+Different?

 **Then and Now ** Digital natives are named as such for a reason. They live in a world full of constant screen stimuli and they know no different. Today, the majority of people still grew up in a time where technology evolved around them. Computer advances were slow coming, portable music devices could not fit in a back pocket, and a cordless phone was out of range in the back yard. Digital natives, however, were practically born screen in hand. They do not need to adapt to new technologies, they are the people behind that technology.

Digital Naitves can do marvellous things. They have technology at their fingertips and they understand a new digital language, one that most people are still playing catch-up to. Give students the go ahead and let their digital creativity fly. Most teachers would be amazed at what a digital native can come up with. Creativity has moved from tangible to digital. Class projects stray from cut and paste paper collages and turn into wiki sites or glogs. Digital natives might be over stimulated multitaskers, but this does not mean they can't sit and create unique projects as a product of learning. Digital natives just go about things differently.

Frontline's Digital Nation programming (PBS, 2010) deals with advances in technology and how these advances affect our lives. The following link will take you to a video concerning the changing digital world and M.I.T. student's lives as digital natives. [|Digital Nation]

Photo: http://www.kidkaizen.com/tag/kids/, 2010