Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

I am a Digital Immigrant. My first introduction to computers was when I was nineteen and worked for an oil company. The “computer” had its own room. It was a very large glassed in area that needed to be kept cool at all times. This meant that when we had a power outage one stifling summer day, we got open doors and a Carvel ice cream sandwich and the computer got all the air conditioning the generator could muster.
I purchased my first personal computer in early 90’s. It was a Packard Bell and had almost no memory and crawled through the internet like a snail. I loved it!! At first I used it mostly to play computer games and make cards and note cards with matching envelopes for my kids to hand write notes to relatives on. Isn’t that what home computers were for? Then we signed up for our first free trial of AOL. Now I was in the big leagues. Chat Rooms helped me learn something that two years of high school typing class could not do - how to type without looking at the keyboard. It’s very hard to read what is flying up on the computer screen if you are busy looking at the keyboard to see if you are hitting the right keys.
I do still have problems with reading large articles or books on the computer. I bought a great digital camera quite a few years ago and I still don’t know how to use all of the features because it did not come with a paper instruction manual, only a CD. I admit that I printed out the two assigned articles to read them (Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants – page 2).
My youngest son is 16 and definitely a Digital Native. He was on the computer when he was two. He has been in love with video games since he was a pre-schooler and has known since he was in elementary school that he wants to design video games. Like Prensky says, Digital Immigrants don’t believe students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music, because we can’t. My son does his homework, on the computer, with his TV on, his webcam up and running, and IM boxes popping up (Digital Natives – page 3). I have to argue a bit with Prensky’s logic and have to wonder about how old he is because I grew up doing my homework with the TV on or with my radio or record player on. Could it be that the older we get the harder it is to focus on two things at once? It will be interesting to see if today’s Digital Natives can still do all of those things when they reach an older age.
Although I am a Digital Immigrant, while reading Part II, I could totally relate to the paragraph that referenced Pong (Do They Really Think Differently? – page 3). I worked at a toy store in 1977 when the first Pong games came in that Christmas season (didn’t think about the fact that was a computer at the time). We all spent our breaks at the back of the store playing the game. And we spent a lot of our paychecks at the local video arcade. I think, although I am not a native, I am a very old immigrant!
I use a computer everyday at work. I have high speed cable internet at home and will probably login in the early evening.