Digital Native

I would consider myself a digital native. A digital native is defined as people who are “'native speakers' of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.” I didn’t always grow up with the best technology but I have caught up with the advances fairly quickly in recent years. We had dial up Internet connections for our computers throughout my high school years. When I went off to college I was able to learn more about technology and its uses. Those experiments, and with the help of my friends, I was able to become technologically savvy.

My high school didn’t really have much technology to speak of other than televisions that were on rolling carts. However, when I got into college I was amazed at the technology that was available to us and began using it at all times possible. I began teaching myself how to use the various aspects of the technology, often times having to help the professors figure out how to use a given device. Most of my professors would be described as digital immigrants because they “were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology.”

The growing technological options helped to increase my learning ability as I am a visual learner. I fine tuned my technological skills as a teacher’s assistant at PSU helping students with their projects, uploading information to and setting up a class website, and grading work online. College definitely improved my experience with technology.

I don’t think my mind has been changed about using technology in the classroom because I see it as a necessity. Students will likely know more about technology than I will and they will be using it every day on various types of machines and devices. “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” Using these mediums to convey information will help them understand concepts more clearly in forms they know and use daily.

I plan on using PowerPoint, movies, the Internet, and other forms of media to teach students various concepts. I’m not sure yet exactly how I’ll incorporate different types of media but I know I’ll be using it in my classroom. I thought an important quote regarding new teachers and students was that students “have short attention spans—for the old ways of learning.”