I have just read Marc Prensky’s Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (again). This was the paper where he calls for a radical shift in the way we teach. He believes there has been a fundamental change in today’s students, that possibly their “brains have physically changed” that they are “different from ours”. However, I think Prensky’s dichotomy is perhaps too simplistic. Perhaps, there was/is a distinct difference between the two groups. But what about naturalised immigrants, those of use who have taken up the technological bounty we’ve created? Having become naturalised to the point where many of the so-called ‘immigrants’ are younger than me, and many of my students don’t get what I’m talking about, I’m beginning to think that perhaps there is potential for a naturalisation to occur. It relates in some ways to James Wertsch’s discussions of ‘appropriation’. It is entirely possible to become naturalised without growing up with the technologies.

People often wonder that I have my computer in the lounge room, that I have the TV/radio going, instant messaging programs open, my email always open (apparently one of the often cited interruptions to an academic’s ability to engage in research). But these skills, the way I have of working is perhaps more indicative of the transition I have made to the digital world. In effect, I have ‘gone native’*.

But the fact is, I almost need the constant simulation. It’s disruptive, but that’s technology. It frustrates me terribly that I see some people unable to engage fully in their own domains when it’s mediated by technology.

But Prensky is right about there being a different way of thinking, but immigrants can become native. We just have to get close enough to the natives.

*Who was it that coined that term? Where are all the anthropologists when you need them?