EPAC Chat

EPAC hosted a chat last week. The topic of discussion was “Who are today’s students?” Participants were asked to read a series of articles by Marc Prensky, the main one titled, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” In the articles, Prensky makes use of his “digital natives, digital immigrants” metaphor to discuss the differences between today’s teachers and students.

Some participants questioned Prensky’s definition of today’s students as multi-tasking, indicating that in their experiences in the classroom, students want a structured, linear learning environment. Others suggested that Prensky’s definitions were too general and didn’t take into account, for example, gender or cultural differences.

It was a very lively discussion, with a large number of participants. I understand that this chat topic will be repeated this Wednesday (Sept 15th) at a later time (8pm PDT) to allow colleagues in Australia and Asia to participate.

The transcripts from all the EPAC chat sessions are made available at the EPAC site and make an interesting read if you can’t attend a chat session!