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Of all the writers, politicians, and others who have ripped off the originator of the "digital native" and "digital immigrant" labels and concepts, Marc Prensky , someone calling herself an anthropologist should at least credit the spark of a light she's basking in.

Get Kirah's name right yes, but worse: the /. summary, TFA AKA ninemsn and Microsoft, and myriad others before them have either been unaware of Prensky or have themselves enjoyed a ride without crediting him and his relative wit.

Here is the original source from Prensky. It's not as if he's a nobody, he has a Harvard MBA and a Masters in Teaching from Yale where I suppose he made a few connections, and while not a household name he's successful in tech business and philanthropy.

In 2005 Rupert Murdoch spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors , after which Murdoch was widely credited with the "digital native, digital immigrant" observation and phrases. To pick an Australian example of subsequent error in which the text of Murdoch's speech is also posted, see "The Challenge Of Becoming A True Digital Native: Rupert Murdoch."

Thanks to Mr. Murdoch's blockbuster status, not only speciality sites, but sites often used for citation like About.com have credited Murdoch for posterity, as in this article targeting educators which asks, in a poll and an associated essay, "Are You A Digital Native Or Digital Immigrant?"

Even Apple, who took Prensky's idea and ran with it, credits Ian Jukes and Anita Dosaj of The InfoSavvy Group, not Prensky!

At least someone has it right, if for the next few minutes, incompletely so.

BG

Both the article and the summary seem to imply that she came up with the "digital immigrant" and "digital native" labels. While others may have posited the idea prior, it seems that Marc Prensky has been discussing this (warning - PDF) since at least 2001. It is within the larger issue of how we reach these natives to educate them. It is a concept easily used elsewhere because the relevancy and the approach it suggests are easily seen. I find it somewhat amusing, however, when others simply use it as an observational tool, using it more as a justification for their approach than a truly meaningful response to a larger issue. I wasn't there for the keynote address, so I can't accuse Anne of this, specifically. But it does seem like a psuedo-intellectual argument designed to impress the crowd while giving only surface-level answers to the issue.

Hehe. Well I guess I better not post this link. It's a page about the GOOD things about games.

I'm reading another book, Digital Game-Based Learning by author Marc Prensky.

As a middle- and high-school teacher, I'm working on integrating the Sims in a learning environment, similarly to how Prensky proposes in What Kids Learn that's POSITIVE..., but in a slightly different way.

With the Sims, students can experiment with modelling a different personality or type of interaction with other characters, and formally analyze how you learn about other peoples' wants and/or needs.

I feel that if I had the training to formally analyze social situations, even at the most superficial, it would have made my own social maturation a bit easier from the start.

If you focus and guide the lesson and not just give them a "game to play," these can be used very effectively.

Now, I have to figure out how to get the money to *buy* the Sims... (Teacher salaries + school district budgets) is basically adding zeroes.