21st Century Learners

I find Prensky somewhat of a dimwit! His readings basically inform us that the pedagogies associated with Digital Immigrants, are useless in todays society due to technology.  Last time I checked my car still had a steering wheel and pedals to drive it.  While technology has come a long way and will continue to be a strong influence on our Digital Natives, society is not entirely driven by the technology Prensky is referring to. 

Digital Natives while learning a new language to that of their predecessors, still require in my opinion, the pedagogies learnt by generations before them.  The idea of computer games being the learning style of the future is absolutely absurd.  Firstly not every student is a visual or kinesthetic learner and video games are basically appealing to these two styles.  Not to mention they fail to achieve anything other than brainwashing Digital Natives.  Lets face it, how many adolescents do you know use most of their time on the computer or even mobile phone for that matter, for educational purposes.  Yet in schools today we have computers for use as an educational tool and have had for about two decades now. 

Prensky is suggesting that adopting "edutainment" within the education system would "engage" rather than "enrage".  So to entertain this idea would be to allow the Digital Natives to control their behavioural management.  Already teachers and parents have almost no rights in todays society.  Now Prensky wants to hand even more control over to them, in the form of their curriculum for fear of "enrage".  How about conform to the same pedagogies that were good enough for the many generations before you!  Yes our teaching techniques need to meet the developments of the 21st century, but that doesn't mean the content has to change.  These Digital Natives should be made learn to add and subtract without calculators, spell words that are used in everyday language and learn to read the directions on a map.  Let's face it when they finish school and go out into the workforce is their employer going to say, "No Johnny, you don't have to read the manual for this machine you can play Monster Trucks instead.  That will teach you everything you need to know about the machine."  I think not.  They will have to read and learn in the same fashion the Digital Immigrants have before them. 

While I find some of the elements of Prensky's findings to be benefitial to the future pedagogies for Digital Natives, his overall summary of the 21st century and its education system favour one side.  Digital Natives are still learning and Digital Immigrants are their teachers.  So it would make sense that while Digital Immigrants need to consider the development of technology in the 21st century and its impact on the education system; they also need to control the behavioural management "enrage", while collaboratively networking the relevant teaching strategies, most effective for the Digital Natives learning development.


REFERENCE:
Prensky, Marc. (October 2001). 'Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants', in MCB University press, Vol. 9 No. 5. Retrieved March 11, 2011, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf.
Prensky, Marc. (September/October 2005). 'Engage me or Enrage me: What today's learners demand', in Educause review, p60-64.  Retrieved March 11, 2011, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf.