The Oregon Trail.. it’s not just a fun game (You just died from Dysentery)
The Oregon Trail.. it’s not just a fun game (Dysentery)
I had the distinct pleasure of growing while new and exciting technologies were being released. Although my entire early education did not contain video games, computers, iPad and other technology I was lucky enough to play the Oregon Trail. You know that game where you decide how much food and other supplies to start with before you travel. Should you buy horses or ox to pull your covered wagon? Do you trust people you meet on the way there? All to end up dying of a weird disease prior to making it to your destination? The Oregon Trail made me a Digital Native.
Marc Prensky (2001a, 2001b) introduced us to the fundamental difference between today’s students and older adults, technology. Those students that grew up with technology as a part of their daily lives move fast move faster, like to multi-task and participate in interactive learning activities. These Digital Natives (Prensky 2001a, 2001b) want to learn new information away from lectures and tell-test methods. For the students that did not learn in this new digital world it can been harder. They must learn a new language in order to learn and teach the Digital Natives. They are Digital Immigrants. “The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their “accent”, that is their foot in the past” (Prensky 2001a).
When working with a mixed group of Digital
Immigrants, Digital Natives or what Prensky (2009) calls Digital Wisdom it’s
important to gage and understand what each participants feelings are on the use
of new technology. As an instructor, knowing what each of your participants’
level of comfort is allows for you to step in and provide support when needed. Dr.
Michael G. Moore (2018) suggests that the structure, dialog, learner autonomy, and transactional distance should
be considered in each class using new technology. I consider myself a Digital
Native. An instructor would be able to provide me with autonomy and little structure
in a course while checking on my progress through communication and feedback on
my assignments. For a learner that is a Digital Immigrant and possibly uncomfortable
with new technology the transactional distance could take its toll (Moore 2018).
The instructor could provide support by structuring activities, providing
instructional handouts, and communicating directly with that student during
each activity.
Have you seen a Digital Immigrant display Digital Wisdom in
one of your courses? What was it?
References:
Moore,
G. M. (2018). The theory of transactional distance. In M. Moore & W. Diehl
(Eds.), Handbook of distance education (4th ed., pp. 32-46). New York, NY:
Routledge. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315296135-4
Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital natives, digital
immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon 9(5), 1–6.
https://doi-org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.1108/10748120110424816 Links to an
external site.
Prensky, M. (2001b). Digital natives, digital
immigrants Part 2: do they really think differently? On the Horizon 9(6),
1–6.
https://doi-org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.1108/10748120110424843 Links to an
external site.
Prensky, M. (2009). H. Sapiens digital: from
digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom. Innovate: Journal
of Online Education. 5(3). http://nsuworks.nova.edu/innovate/vol5/iss3/1 Links
to an external site.
Hey Martha,
ReplyDeleteYour blog is very entertaining and fun! Unfortunately, the Oregon Trail Online game was after my time. Yes, I am a Digital Native, and I would say proud of it, but that remains to be seen. I, too, grew up during the computer technology revolution, although it was in the 1970s and 1980s. I recall having my first computer, the Texas Instrument TI-99/4A. But, yes, there is a fundamental distinction between digital immigrants and digital natives. However, the perspective cannot be generalized to the whole population. For instance, I know digital immigrants who are quite versed in technology. Then, I also know digital natives were born during the “Age of Technology” who cannot open a Microsoft Word document. Prensky (2016), conversely, indicated that we must prepare students for the coming digital and technological assault, which was shocking yet informative. Prensky (2016) also proposed a new teaching paradigm for kids grades K through 12. He suggested educational system changes were necessary to prepare students for unbridled connectivity and mass technology.
References
Prensky, M. (2016). Unleashing the power of our 21st-century kids. https://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/SNS-Prensky-Unleashing_the_Power_of_21st_c_kids-FINAL.pdf
Agreed! I think the major distinction Prensky (2009) introduced was the concept of Digital Wisdom. If we don't move towards that path we will for lack of a better term be "lost". Digital Immigrants that acknowledge technology and embrace it's power and tools move to digital wisdom! Thank you so much for commenting!
DeleteGreetings! I appreciate your discussion and summary of Prensky's (2001a and 2001b) dialectic on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. I enjoy the mix of variables that we are analyzing – multigenerational differences alongside value-based differences that are similar to a multi-cultural assessment. Additionally, I appreciate Prensky’s (2012) opening discussion on listening to his students in his From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom article. It’s so simple, yet powerful: better education is achieved when instructors work in concert with students’ needs. I believe the paradigm will remain true as you listen to adult learners as well as instructors strive to achieve the appropriate balance for the learning environment they are creating.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, there is nothing specifically that comes to mind as far as a Digital Immigrant displaying wisdom on a course; however, what comes to mind is my dad and his usage of YouTube to learn new things. My family is in the midst of building a multi-generational house on some land we purchased, and we are in the early stages of homesteading. Needless to say, our experiences in our comfortable suburban lives that we left do not overlay well with homesteading, gardening, livestock management and land conservation. However, he has learned from dozens of fellow homesteaders, on dozens of important tasks from cistern building and plumbing, raising chickens, and small animals, building a house, and leveraging permaculture as a sustainable practice. Will the execution of the tasks be flawless when we get started? Certainly not, but I will say that this foundational exposure to unlimited learning opportunities via online educational tools like YouTube enables us to partake on an adventure, reduce risks, and build into a community. At this point he has fully adopted YouTube as the first-stop shop for getting a baseline understanding of anything we start. He’s a sponge researching and learning from others, then teaching me, and we go out and try things together. We are different generations, but our combined experiences have so far proven to be a valuable mix. Dare I say in danger of jinxing it, but it feels like we have achieved an optimal balance in our joint learning environment.
PS - I played LOTs of Oregon Trail and Number Munchers. No regrets!
References:
Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital natives, digital immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon 9(5), 1–6. https://doi-org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.1108/10748120110424816 Links to an external site.
Prensky, M. (2001b). Digital natives, digital immigrants Part 2: do they really think differently? On the Horizon 9(6), 1–6. https://doi-org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.1108/10748120110424843
Prensky, M. (2009). H. Sapiens digital: from digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom. Innovate: Journal of Online Education. 5(3). http://nsuworks.nova.edu/innovate/vol5/iss3/1
Laura thank you for commenting! I love the example your father represents in his use of Youtube for his learning journey. From the perspective of an adult educator I bet you are cheering internally! Prensky's (2009) article was so fascinating bringing up the concept of digital wisdom and almost moving his original thoughts on digital natives and digital immigrants to a spectrum. Each type of technology user must embrace the every changing environments of technology to be successful like your dad!
DeleteReference:
Prensky, M. (2009). H. Sapiens digital: from digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom. Innovate: Journal of Online Education. 5(3). http://nsuworks.nova.edu/innovate/vol5/iss3/1
Good Evening Martha - there's so much I love about the Oregon Trail reference. Your analogy to digital learning through leveraging that game instantly took be back to all the hours I spent, sitting next to my grandmother, as we decided whether to ford the Snake River or pay for a ferry. Naturally, we always started as the banker so money was never a problem, but snake bites and prairie dog holes seemed to plague every journey.
ReplyDeleteYour questions is interesting - since I work in higher education, I've seen faculty members, who likely started as digital immigrants, eventually master coding languages as a mechanism for classroom instruction and data analysis. Though, I feel that was a function of intellectual curiosity [I'm counting that as an exception to the rule].
While I wouldn't call it rare, it's likely uncommon to see mastery as to account it as wisdom. I'll have to think on this...
Hoot....
Thank you for the reply! Do you think that we could even break down Digital Wisdom as a spectrum as well? I'm thinking something like Digital Understanding, Digital Acceptance and possible then Wisdom? Not sure how we would test this!
Delete