Benefits+of+internet+technology+for+Digital+Natives

Digital Natives thrive on digital media and benefit greatly from it.

Even though there are individuals like Mark Bauerlein and E.D. Hirsch who believe digital technology has made Digital Natives stupid, I tend to agree with Don Tapscott that digital technology has the potential to create - and in many cases has created - a much more effective learning experience. However, regardless if Digital Natives have greater intelligence or less intelligence, the fact remains that they are different, and teachers need to be aware of that. Tapscott (2008) suggests that "the Net Geners have grown up digital and they're living in the twenty-first century, but the education system in most places is lagging at least 100 years behind" (p. 122). One school principal insightfully states that "teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge; the internet is" (Tapscott, 126). The focus of learning in the twenty-first century is more on the students rather than the teachers.Therefore, teachers need to adjust their pedagogy accordingly.The following are just a small number of ways that the internet can enrich learning for students.

The internet has redefined the way that students conduct research. Digital Natives know that it is much more efficient and faster to search the internet for research material than it is to go to the library and scan through countless books looking for relevant research material. Furthermore, the internet has access to huge amounts of information that libraries cannot hope to equal.

Thanks to international chat rooms on the internet, Digital Natives are not limited to books as resources when they are learning about specific cultures, religions, and regions. Using the internet, students can actually communicate with "people who live in [in a specific] region and get first hand information about it" (Lui, 1997, Internet may improve learning process section, para. 2). Via the internet, Digital Natives can "gain from others' knowledge and experiences . . .share ideas and solutions and learn about the many diverse cultures" interactively (Lui, 1997, Internet has many benefits section, para. 1).

Since Digital Natives spend large amounts of time playing video games, they have developed greater hand eye coordination, quicker reaction times and better peripheral vision than people who play little or no video games (Tapscott, 2008, p. 102). Furthermore, because of video gaming, Digital Natives have heightened spatial awareness and skills that can be useful in the future for finding high profile jobs in vocational areas where these skills are essential (e.g. architecture, engineering, surgery, etc.) (Tapscott, p. 98). Another difference is that Digital Natives are visual learners. According to Marc Prensky, "contemporary learners, influenced by music videos and the sound clip culture, increasingly perceive text as an aid to support audio and visual messages" instead of vice versa (as cited in Culligan, 2003, How digital natives think differently section).

Furthermore, Digital Natives are better at multi-tasking. Marc Prensky notes that "younger learners have been multi-tasking since their infancy. Whether listening to music while studying; instant messaging while in the classroom; downloading music while surfing the web; or speaking on the cellphone while writing a paper, the capacity exists for parallel processing" (as cited in Culligan, 2003, How digital natives think differently section). Therefore, teachers need to keep in mind that even though it might seem distractive, students might be more relaxed and work better while listening to their iPod or working with multiple widows open on a computer monitor. However, according to University of Michigan Psychologist David Meyer, the heightened ability to multi-task of Digital Natives limits their ability to "'think deeply about a subject, analyze it, or develop a creative idea" (as cited in Tapscott, 2008, p. 109). As such, teachers need to consistently support their students' learning with tasks that will help to develop and mantain their cognitive abilities. Digital Natives are accustomed to interacting with friends via Web 2.0 web applications and, as a result, they learn better when they are engaged interactively. Additionally, interactive web applications have trained them to work better collaberatively rather than independently. Teachers need to keep in mind that "students start internatlizing what they've learned in class only once they start talking to each other" about what they have just heard (Tapscott, 2008, p. 137). However, even though the internet provides many benefits for Digital Native, the internet can also provide easy access to seemingly unlimited amounts of abusive, exploitive, violent and generally undesirable online content and people. As such, one of the more vital issues associated with Digital Natives and their penchant for online activities is the real concern for online safety and internet censorship. Next Page