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Technology is inescapable these days. It has made some things in our lives easier, and has changed the way we communicate with the world. It serves as our portal to our homes, schools, and jobs, and is in some cases the center of our social lives. Many technology tools that we now take for granted have augmented, and in some cases replaced, older analog technologies, enabling us to streamline and simplify our tasks. In many cases we ask ourselves how we ever got along without such a resource. Consider where we are now compared to twenty years ago with technologies like cell phones, e-mail and the Internet—or even just ten years back when social networking with Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster was just beginning—and you can see how much the landscape has changed in just a few short years. Kids growing up today don’t remember not having cell phones and always-on Internet access; now social networking sites aren’t just for amusement but have become a way of life for most of us. If you do anything embarrassing while someone is filming, you can bet that it will show up on YouTube for the world to see. All of these, in varying degrees, have changed how we interact with one another and with the world.

However, as we grow accustomed to these new technological innovations, are we developing new skills to our benefit, or are we simply replacing older analog methods of accomplishing the same thing? And are there advantages to the new way over the old one, or are we “phasing out” skills that might still have some importance from time to time? Consider these examples:

1. Although kids are still taught to read analog clocks in grade school, the majority of clocks that are being installed in schools these days are digital, or if they are analog, they include a digital readout at the bottom. The majority of clocks in most homes are digital too (your DVD player, clock radio, computer, etc.). As a consequence, fewer and fewer kids can read a wristwatch because they aren’t getting the practice. My wife teaches 8th grade, and she says she has a lot of kids who can’t tell time without a digital clock!
2. Lots of people these days use maps from the Internet or GPS to get directions. But what if the information on the GPS is outdated, or the Internet directions are wrong? This happened to me recently in Colorado: after Google Maps led us into the middle of nowhere and off course, we pulled over and bought a state map, and that got us on the right track. However, this was only because I know how to read a map, which obviously won’t give turn-by-turn directions, and to use the compass I carry with me. We are losing the ability to navigate with map and compass, because the majority of the time you don’t have to know how to read them anymore. Many people are content to turn on their phone’s location service or their GPS and follow blindly from there, without truly knowing where they are or where they’re going; they just follow the directions and assume they’ll get there.
3. The last time you had to do some mathematical computation, how did you do it? I bet you whipped out a calculator, used your computer or phone’s built-in calculator, or did a formula operation in a spreadsheet program. You probably didn’t reach for a pencil and paper to do some long division. Like telling time on analog clocks, they do still teach this in schools, but these days calculators are used at least as often, even on standardized tests. The state of Illinois gives aspiring teachers a Basic Skills Test that is roughly equal to the abilities in math and English of an 8th grade student. This test has a 77 percent failure rate as of 2010, and the failing scores are predominantly in math. Why? As someone who has taken this very test, I can venture a guess: calculators are not allowed, which means that test takers have to navigate that long division unaided. They are failing because they have been using calculators for so long that they have forgotten how to calculate by hand.

So what does this mean for us? Operations like telling time, navigating, and doing math haven’t changed, but the way in which we find answers in each system has, and our increasing reliance on these electronic devices is slowly removing the old ways simply because using them is easier. In most cases, the failure we are seeing isn’t the inability to choose what operation to perform; it’s the failure to do so without an electronic device’s aid. Thinking back a number of years to when we still needed road maps, we didn’t have any more trouble getting around than we do now even though mapping is available on nearly every phone. The ease of using the electronic counterpart is now overshadowing the old fashioned tried-and-true way. This may not be a problem in everyday usage, but it can be catastrophic when the technology doesn’t work. What if you don’t know how to do it the low-tech way?

This phenomenon of new technology replacing old has huge implications for the teaching world. More and more, students are coming out of K-12 and college with a set of skills that are predominantly plug-and-play; that is, they have the ability to solve a problem using a tool, but they don’t have the know-how to tell you what procedure they are following, or even why they are following the steps in that order. Instead, they know a procedure that says, “If I do thing A with tool X, I will get answer B.” There’s no intuition in this; the cognitive process has been removed altogether and replaced with an instruction manual of sorts. Problem solving cannot happen here unless the information to be plugged in is presented in the same way the student learned the procedure.

In the last decade, educational philosophy has increasingly focused on creating “authentic,” “real-world” problem-solving processes. The argument is that students need to be able to apply learned concepts to actual situations they will encounter instead of doing purely theoretical exercises. This concept is a fantastic idea in theory, but the catch to this is that many of the electronic replacements we are using are removing the theoretical portion and leaving only the process. There is no opportunity for students to see the theoretical knowledge being applied or to understand how it is being applied; they just plug in numbers and variables and get an answer. If the answer was all we were looking for, this would be enough, but obviously as instructors we are interested in students’ mastery of the theoretical, not their ability to plug and chug. We need to be sure that we’re teaching students the “why” part of the process, and not just the “how.” If you are going to use an electronic replacement for an analog activity, it is important to make sure that the resource still requires the student to do some thinking on his/her own outside of number-crunching. If there is a process that can be done by hand, the resource should be used to simplify that process rather than replacing it, and instructors should make sure that students can still perform the specified actions without any electronic help. If possible, teach the analog method first, so the tool will be perceived as a helper rather than the primary problem-solving method. For example, students learning to do bibliographic citations could be told to create citations on their own by hand, and then use an online bibliography tool like EasyBib or NoodleTools to check their work. In this way students learn to do the work on their own, and perceive the tool as a helper for difficult citations rather than as “the way to create citations.” Students learn to do the heavy lifting first, and the tool is secondary, rather than being the heavy lifter.

In this age of electronic conveniences, it’s often difficult to try and “go analog” and do things the old-fashioned way when there are so many easy ways around to do it faster, cheaper, and with less human involvement. Still, the benefit to learners has remained the same, even though the times are a-changin’. Regardless of what the electronic world can create to “enhance” our lives, there’s still no substitute for old-fashioned know-how and human reasoning, and those who don’t need electronic crutches will always have an advantage. It’s important to remember that sometimes the old way is still a useful one, even if it’s not the easy one.

If you’re an instructional designer or an educator with an interest in technology, you’ve probably heard someone use the term “digital native” to refer to young students who are innately tech savvy because they’ve been using the internet and digital technologies for as long as they can remember. You’ve probably also heard someone refer to today’s instructors—particularly older educators—as digital immigrants because they lack the same level of “fluency” in the technology skills, language, and culture that digital natives possess.

When Marc Prensky wrote “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” in 2001, he presented several spot-on observations about how some older instructors are unwilling or unable to embrace digital technology and culture in the same way that some immigrants never embrace the language and customs of a new country. While a few of his observations are lighthearted, he insists that the consequences of this trend are quite serious. To drive this point home, he claims that game-based learning can be used in all subject areas and implies that educators who reject this idea are dumb, lazy, and ineffective.

A frequent objection I hear from Digital Immigrant educators is “this approach is great for facts, but it wouldn’t work for my subject.” Nonsense. This is just rationalization and lack of imagination. In my talks I now include “thought experiments” where I invite professors and teachers to suggest a subject or topic, and I attempt—on the spot—to invent a game or other Digital Native method for learning it. Classical philosophy? Create a game in which the philosophers debate and the learners have to pick out what each would say. The Holocaust? Create a simulation where students role-play the meeting at Wannsee, or one where they can experience the true horror of the camps, as opposed to the films like Schindler’s List. It’s just dumb (and lazy) of educators—not to mention ineffective—to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way to teach and that the Digital Natives’ “language” is not as capable as their own of encompassing any and every idea.

In his 2006 article “Listen to the Natives,” Prensky continues to emphasize that instructors must change their ways and place higher emphasis on engagement, stating, “As educators, we must take our cues from our students’ 21st-century innovations and behaviors, abandoning, in many cases, our own predigital instincts and comfort zones. Teachers must practice putting engagement before content when teaching.”

As someone who spent much of his childhood (and now a decent chunk of adulthood) playing video games, I love the idea of instructors integrating more games, simulations, and challenge-based learning activities into their courses. And there is mounting evidence that computer games can provide students with critical skills they need to succeed in the 21st-century job market.  A 2006 Wired article, “You Play World of Warcraft? You’re Hired!” describes how management at Yahoo! considered a candidate’s achievements as a leader in the multiplayer game World of Warcraft to be an asset that set him apart from other applicants for a position as senior director of engineering operations.

Unfortunately, what educational-game-loving scholars fail to acknowledge is that even when we can prove that students have learned something more effectively and efficiently through game-based learning, we have to consider the return on investment. And by investment, I don’t mean the amount of time students have to spend playing the game in order to master a particular number of concepts or commit a certain number of facts to memory (although this should be evaluated as well). I’m referring to the amount of time and money it takes instructors, instructional designers, graphic artists, and programmers to develop educational games—or any multimedia learning resources for that matter.

Any game designer will tell you that even a high-budget, state-of-the-art video game will look dated within a few years of its release. Even the games featured on Prensky’s own company website, games2train, are showing their age. This isn’t necessarily an indicator that Prensky and his team are poor game designers. It just confirms that games often take a great deal of time and money to build and have a relatively short window of usefulness before they need to be updated or completely redesigned.

I think Prensky would argue that at the very least, instructors could do more to engage digital natives with low-tech games and simulations that increase learner engagement. His suggestions for games to teach philosophy or the Holocaust don’t necessarily require much more than a good set of role-playing instructions or a collection of powerful images from concentration camps and a provocative discussion prompt.

If the message was simply, “Let’s rethink the design of our assessments and learning activities so they’re more interactive and engaging,” I’d be all for it. However, what I often hear (and what I hear from the faculty I train) is that instructors feel pressured to make their course material as riveting and addictive as the bestselling video game du jour.  That’s a lot to live up to, especially for a faculty member who, until recently, was feeling quite proud of herself for finally learning how to resize and crop a photo in PowerPoint.

I’m overjoyed when faculty come to me with grand visions for a multimedia game or simulation, but I know they often feel daunted when I tell them what they’ll need to contribute to the project. That’s why I typically brainstorm with them to find the most low-tech solution that meets their needs, then we build on that as time allows. I also like to look at their learning materials and ask a few questions to make sure we’re not putting the cart before the horse. Some of these questions include:

• Are the course materials broken down into manageable segments?
• Can students easily stop reading, listening, or watching and pick up where they left off later?
• Is it clear to students why they should read or watch each resource?
• Are resources prioritized? Is it clear which resources are the most important and which resources are optional?
• Will students know what terms to watch for or what questions to ask themselves as they go through the material?
• Are there ungraded knowledge checks to ensure students know if they’ve missed something?
• Do some assessments require application of the concepts? Are students asked to think critically about what they’ve learned?
• Do discussions encourage an exchange of diverse ideas and opinions? Or are students simply asked to regurgitate content from the resources and provide answers that will be repetitive and unoriginal?

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but I think it’s a good place to start. It might not generate the same buzz as turning a Holocaust lesson into a video game and accusing veteran professors of being lazy and behind the times, but at least we can rest assured that our priorities are in order and our courses are built on strong foundations. In addition, addressing fundamental course-design questions first and encouraging digital immigrants’ efforts does more than improve course quality. It provides digital immigrants with a starting point that feels welcoming and manageable—an Ellis Island of instructional design, if you will. It builds their confidence and encourages them to try new things. It replaces shame and guilt with pride and optimism.

We might not be able to completely transform an academic environment that can be hostile to digital immigrants, but we can strive to be better ambassadors of the digital culture we love. In the process, we can foster a melting pot of ideas and approaches to teaching that draws strength from diversity. And that’s the kind of immigration reform that benefits digital immigrants and digital natives alike.