Reading Quest 3

1. Learning to think in a Digital World
The author talks about how we are going into a digital world, and that we are thinking less and less about reading literary things and more about online things.  She also talks about the digital age is Socrates nightmare,because he believed in the spoken word.  She is worried that the digital age will reshape our brains and our relationship with reading, knowledge, and learning will be changed forever.  I believe that she is being a little over dramatic, because what we are doing online is in essence...reading. I have gained tons of knowledge from reading up stuff online, and I actually prefer reading things online rather than in a book. I have read stories online and it felt just the same in my mind than if I were to be reading a book, I think we process things the same thing, whether it be written on paper or posted online.

2. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
This chapter talks about digital natives, meaning, people who were born in the digital era and are naturally accepting of all things digital, whereas digital immigrants are those we have to learn and adapt to his new culture of the digital age.  The author explores ways that educators can appeal to today's students and that its ridiculous for them to use old methods for new technologically advanced students, he talks about turning things into video games, which he believes would get a better respond out of students, he says if kids can name 101 Pokemon and know the characteristics and history of them, they should be able to name countries and characteristics, there just needs to be a better way to teach the material and put it in a more interactive and enjoyable way to the students.

3. Usability of Websites for Teenagers
This article talks about studies to determine how a design and look and feel of a website appeals to the new digital era teenage generation.  The study was to take a poll with teenagers from USA and Australia and to ask what their favorite sites were and why.  The results didn't show a huge difference between the countries, except for the fact that Australia is in love with sports and they all went to sports websites for the most part.  The test confirmed that teens enjoy cool and colorful effects as long as it didn't interfere with the material they were looking for, so color and effects were not the deciding factor if a teen liked the site.  It found that teens dislike slow and hard to navigate websites, it also found that students dont like to read long text material online or read small fonts.

4. Do they Really Think Differently?
This article discusses that, the prior belief, that our brain structure doesn't change, morph, and evolve was an incorrect statement, there is pretty strong evidence that your thinking patterns change depending on your life experiences, also the process and strategies of thought were thought to be the same for everyone, which is also not the case.  Teachers complain that the new digital age gas short attention spans, which may not actually be the case, the digital agers crave interactivity and enjoyment in what they do.  So it might not be that they aren't able to focus, its that they dont want to focus.  The digital natives are wanting new approaches to teaching methods, which is why new methods of digital game based methods are becoming so prevalent.  Basically, digital immigrants need to stop holding onto the past and learn the new technology and adapt to this new generation.