Week 8: Website 4

The third website I looked at is more of a blog. Even though it is a blog it highlights some of the writer’s individual opinions as well as highlighting the works of Prensky. He defines the ideas of what both digital natives and digital immigrants are. The writer obviously has been educated as there are pictures of books in which he has released about digital technologies based around blogging, convergence culture and gaming. This suggests that his ideas can be seen to be more reliable and valid. The particular writer of this blog mentions how he does not like the term ‘digital native’ or ‘digital immigrant’. He discusses various ideas of Prensky and relates them positively or negatively to his own ideas on the subject. He also looks at the ideas of the first website I commented on. He then goes on to define certain characteristics which digital immigrants have such as:

• To compute with an ‘accent’
• Being defined with a lack of ‘cultural difference’. This is seen as an obstacle which must be overcome to develop if they’re going to understand what is happening with new technologies in the modern world.

The idea of Digital immigrants being seen as "imposing old world standards on the inhabitants of a new world” which is going to affect their children’s achievements in education is also suggested by this particular writer. It’s interesting to find a site which not only supports the ideas of being digitally involved but also suggest limitations and ideas as to why it is also seen as negative. This particular blog was written at the end 2007. Many of the ideas discussed in the blog may still relate to todays ideas of digitial development, however some may be out of date already even though it was only published two years ago. This indicates the quick progression and development of digital technologies.