The Digital Native and The Digital

Immigrant: Bridging the Gap between

Academic Advisors and Students in the

21st Century

History of Academic Advising (we have come a long way)

During the 17th and 18th centuries (the colonial period) the president of the university and eventually the faculty looked into the overall development of the individual, the idea was to create the perfect gentleman.

Academic Advising in 21st Century

Advising Web Sites

Email

Instant Messaging

Social Networking Sites

Podcasts

Cell Phones

Blogs

Second life

Change has not been easy !

Even though students have moved into the 21st century, the education system has remained in the 20th century

Fortunately or Unfortunately the students of the 21st century are no longer our little versions (Prensky 2007)

Today’s students as coined by Marc Prensky in 2001 are the Digital Natives

Digital Natives?The Digital Natives are native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games, Internet and who use technological tools as extensions of their bodies and minds, fluidly incorporating them into their daily routines (Prensky 2005)

Before leaving college, digital natives (students) have on average:•seen 500,000 commercials, •sent/received 200,000 emails or messages•have spent 10,000 hours playing videogames•have spent 20,000 hours watching TV•have spent less than 5,000 hours reading books(Prensky 2001)

Digital Natives?

Digital Native characteristics (Prensky, 2001)

- parallel process and multitask

- prefer graphics before text

- thrive on instant gratification and rewards

- have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and “tell-test” instruction.

Digital Immigrants?

The digital Immigrants are the educators and advisors who were not born into the digital world, but adopted many or most aspects of the new technology

The digital Immigrants even though have tried to adapt to their new environment, they do end up retaining their “accent” (Prensky 2001)

Digital Immigrants?

Have very little appreciation for the new skills that natives have acquired through years of interaction and practice

Don’t believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music

Thinking that learning can’t be fun

Assume that the methodology that worked for them will work for their students as well

“Accent”

If you print out your email, …

If you bring people into your office to see an interesting website vs. emailing a URL, …

If you make a phone call to check if someone got your email, …

Differences: Natives VS Immigrants

Processing Information

Multitasking

Sense of Identity

Legacy versus Future Learning

Processing Information

Digital Natives retrieve information and communicate with their peers very quickly (Prensky 2001)

Digital immigrants often take the longer route, be it verifying with their peers what they communicated technologically via Facebook or texting with face-to-face confirmation

Multitasking

Digital Immigrants one step at a time, is often the norm through a linear and logical progression

Digital Natives can study with the TV on their IPod blasting in one ear; they practice multitasking almost on a daily basis (Cunningham 2007)

Sense of Identity

Digital Natives use technology as an extension of their bodies

Digital Immigrants use technology to reach someone or to set up a face-to-face meeting

Legacy VS Future Learning

Legacy content includes reading, writing, arithmetic, logical thinking, understanding the writings and ideas of the past- all of your traditional curriculum (Prensky 2001)

Future content is surprisingly not just digital and technological, while it includes software, robotics, nanotechnology etc., it also includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them (Prensky 2001)

How so different?

The brain constantly reorganizes itself all our child and adult lives, a phenomenon technically known as neuroplasticity (Prensky 2001) (For instance: Researchers found that an additional language learned later in life goes into a different place in the brain than the language or languages learned as children)

Malleability: the people who grow up in different cultures do not think about different things, they actually think differently, the environment and culture in which people are raised affects and even determines many of their thought processes (Prensky 2001)

How should the digital immigrants bridge this

gap?Move out of our comfort zone and meet them in the middle

Laugh at our “accents”

Collaborating with students and take their feedback into perspective

Being flexible in our organization

What the future beholds?

The probable evolution of digital immigrants into Homo sapiens digital is what the future beholds, they will differ from the digital immigrants since they will accept digital enhancement as an integral fact of human existence, thus leading to digital wisdom (Prensky 2009)

The gap between Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives will be reduced by Digital enhancement. In fact, at our own pace we are all moving, by fits and starts towards it….

ReferencesCunningham, B. (2007). Digital Native or Digital Immigrant, Which Language Do You Speak? Retrieved from NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources Web site http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/Digital-Natives.htm

Prensky, Marc. (October, 2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Presnky, Marc. (2001) Do they really think different y? Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part2.pdf

Prensky, Marc. (December, 2005) Listen to the Natives. Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Prensky, Marc. (2007) To Educate, We Must Listen. Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-To_Educate,We_Must_Listen.pdf

Prensky, Marc. (July, 2007) Changing Paradigms. Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-ChangingParadigms-01-EdTech.pdf

Prensky, Marc. (2009) Digital Wisdom (H. Sapiens Digital)- Moving beyond Natives and Immigrants. Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/pdf/vol5_issue3/H._Sapiens_Digital-__From_Digital_Immigrants_and_Digital_Natives_to_Digital_Wisdom.pdf