In his article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrant, Mark Prensky states that we can differentiate two kinds of people: you can either be a Digital Native or a Digital Immigrant.
What does that mean? The first group represents the first generations to grow up with new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. And on the other hand, the later refers to the ones who were not born into the digital world but have adopted many or most aspects of the new technology.
We consider ourselves in the middle,we are not immigrants neither natives, since we were born in an era in which technology was starting to develop. But, now we live in the era in which everything is “smart”, even some house devices. So, as teachers to be we need to consider that our students may be a step beyond us as regards technology. That is the reason why we need to improve our ways to teach and to include new technologies in the classrooms in order to involve students in their learning.
We already shared the useful app “Remind” for a teacher to communicate with her/his students. Another way to improve teaching is to have a group in Edmodo, for example. There they can share videos, images and texts that the students and the teacher find interesting. A way to include technology in the lessons is through many engaging activities provided by different websites, like the British Council.
To conclude, we only want to mention that all these activities, although they are engaging, they all need internet connection to be done. Consequently, you need to make sure that all your students can have access to it , not only some of them.
All in all, we can see that Digital Immigrants can adapt and use technology for their own benefits. Sometimes, this may be more difficult for them than for Digital Natives; but it is possible.
