Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

I consider myself as a Digital native student, because I prefer to learn by using media, networks and graphics rather than the old 
traditional way.

Marcy Prensky said; today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. The digital natives Prensky describes are surrounded by digital media to such an extent that their brain structures may be different from those of previous generations. On the other hand, he describes Digital Immigrant teachers as a teachers who are typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice. These skills are almost totally foreign to the Immigrants, who themselves learned – and so choose to teach – slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously. They don't believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music, because they can't. They didn't practice this skill constantly for all of their formative years. Digital Immigrants think learning can't be fun.

There are many differences between Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students. Digital Immigrant teachers learned themselves and choose to teach slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously and Digital Native students receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite.

The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it. There are a lot of examples of the digital immigrant accent. They include printing out your email and bringing people physically into your office to see an interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). Also “Did you get my email?” phone call.

According to Prensky, hat is the biggest serious problem facing education today because our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language, are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.

Prensky said; that Kids born into any new culture learn the new language easily, and forcefully resist using the old. He suggested reconsider both our methodology and our content to coup with the Native students. First, our methodology. He said; teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other things. Second, our content. There are two kinds of content: “Legacy” content and "Future” content.

Prensky said; as educators, we need to be thinking about how to teach both Legacy and Future content in the language of the Digital Natives. The first involves a major translation and change of methodology; the second involves all that PLUS new content and thinking. So we have to invent, but not necessarily from scratch. Adapting materials to the language of Digital Natives has already been done successfully. The solution Prensky proposes is for today's teachers to learn the language of the natives, to speed up instruction, and to provide "random access". Prensky argues for a new way of looking at educational content as well. A category that he calls "legacy content" consists of traditional subjects such as reading, writing, and logical thinking; "future content" is "digital and technological," including such subjects as "software, hardware, robotics, nanotechnology and genomics" as well as the "ethics, politics, sociology, languages, and other things that go with them". His preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content. After all, it's an idiom with which most of them are totally familiar.

Finally, If Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives, all their students they will have to change. It's high time for them to stop their grousing, and as the Nike motto of the Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!” They will succeed in the long run and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators support them.

“How would I use blogs, wikis and delicious with my EFL students?”

“How would I use blogs, wikis and delicious

 with my EFL students?”

In my opinion, I think using different social networks and book marketing such as; Blogger, Wiki space and Delicious, will help EFL students in so many ways. Nowadays, using technology in education become more important and very useful for deliver information to EFL students in easy and enjoyable way. For me, if I become a teacher of EFL students I will use these sites to develop them in different ways as I'll explain that below;

Blogger

Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. Blog is one of the very good and useful tools for students. I would like to teach my students first, how they can be use it. Second, ask them to create an account and following each others. Third, ask them to write posts and add comments for each other's without copy and paste. I think by using this way they will learn faster how to communicate with others and how to connect with any teachers or students of English around the world. Also, they can share their ideas with others confidently.

Wikispaces

Wikispaces is a hosting service -sometimes called a wiki farm-. I would use wiki with my students and first, I will teach them how to use it and how to create an account in it. Second, ask them to divide themselves to a group works and give them tasks and activities related to the subject. So, every group should work together and then I will ask them to put their works on wiki group link –e- profiles side.  

Delicious

Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. I would like to use it with my students. First, I will teach my students how to use it. Second, ask them to make their own Delicious so they can bookmark the important websites and share them with their classmates. Third, ask them to  bookmark articles and links that relate to teaching skills; speaking, listening, reading, and writing to become better in English.

Application of Bax Normilasation in Saudi Arabia: The how!"

Stephan Bax argues that, "Our aim should be to attain a state of `normalization' in which the technology is invisible and truly integrated"

A. In brief, paraphrase the changes which Bax suggested and the means proposed of achieving normalizations.
When I read the article of "CALL—past, present and future ", I found it talked about the history of CALL and what it has been and where and the phases of CALL that Warschauerdiscussed. Also, a critical examination and reassessment of the history of CALLSince CALL was invented, technology was developing continuously in our lives because of its importance in teaching and learning. CALL was divided into three phases which are "behaviouristic", "communicative" and "integrative''.
Stephen Bax suggests changes and means proposed of achieving normalization. First, he requires using computer in classroom practice and in the syllabuses to facilitate and improve learning. Second, there should be training programs that can help teachers and students to use computer in a correct way. Finally, he requires fuller integration into administrative procedures and syllabuses. In order to achieve normalization, CALL should be invisible. In conclusion, if we take our aim to be normalization, and then work for ways of achieving it efficiently, computers can finally achieve their proper place and true potential in the classroom.

B. Explain how these changes and means could be applied to our Saudi context

I think it will not be easy process, but if we compare the education system in Saudi Arabia between now and before six or seven years, we will find a lot of changes. I believe we are able to include technology in our education since we have all the factors and materials to make such a technological educational environment because we have a good idea about technology.    So, I think it will not be difficult to achieve normalization, but first we have to do many changes in the education systems. First of all, computers should be use in classroom context as tools to improve learning. Second, teach students how to use communication web sites like face book and twitter to communicate with the teacher. Finally, provide schools and universities with good and useful tools such as projector, smart board and laptop. However, I think Saudi Arabia has a lot of abilities and achievements which can develop our education in a short time.