I Must be an Immigrant

• "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" by Marc Prensky
• Main Argument: Prensky's main argument is that the advent of the information age has created a change of culture. The "digital natives" are those college-age and under who have grown up surrounded by computers, televisions, videogames, cell phones, etc. He compares the "digital immigrants" with someone new to a language and culture. Although immigrants can learn a new culture, it is not inherent. He argues that the "natives" constant access to information may have rewired "native's" brain to learn differently. The problem for Prensky is that it is the "immigrants" that are teaching the "natives," and their methods no longer work. Rather than step-by-step approach, the "natives" are better suited to learn quickly and more random.
• Things I don't understand: I do not understand how Prensky claims to know how students feel. He claims that students feel as though "we've brought in a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them." Really? Where is the evidence? Although I know I am supposed to think of two things I do not know, I feel as if I understand most of the article.
• Relating to class: A lot of what we have been discussing is how teenagers are treated as an alien form. This article clearly reads as though an anthropologist was writing an ethogram on a foreign culture. He even claims that "students' brains have physically changed" due to use of technology and that teachers need to use new methods to cater to these changes.
• Reading this made me feel that, although I am only twenty, that I am also a "digital immigrant." I always print out documents to correct them and print out assigned texts to read. In fact, I think most people my age do this. I think that this is just another article that exagerates how the younger generation is different.

Talking Points #1 on Hine

• The author of The Rise and Fall of Teenagers is Thomas Hine
• Hine's thesis statement is that the concept of teens are socially constructed. The image of teenagers is a completely different life that a young person a hundred years ago. Teens today usually spend much of their time with people their own age and in the US, tend to have the same high school experiences. In the past, a sixteen-year-old may have been a doctor, a father, or in elementary school. Today, teens are treated as "unfinished persons," or people to give responsibility to but not be trusted. Another image of teenagers are moody and miserable are proven wrong in studies that show that teens are generally happy. These are just a few of the myths Hine investigated
• I can relate to society in the fact that I commonly hear these stereotypes about teenagers.
• I think that it is interesting that youth experiences have become less diverse with time and that teens spend more time with people their own age.
  

When I was 13

For class I have to write a blog on the assigned topics. Here is the first one- When I was 13:


When I was 13, I was in 7th grade and miserable. My father was a serious alcoholic and terrible to live with. I hated Portsmouth Middle School. All I wanted was for people to think I was pretty and like me. I had no idea who I was, so I was always uneasy. On top if that, the beginning of a horrible 5 year eating disorder started when I was 13. Actually, the ages of 13 and 14 were the worst years of my life. But the great thing is, my life has steadily been better since!