Digital Immigration

A digital immigrant is someone who was not born into the 'digital world' however use many of new technology. It was a term coined by Mark Prensky in his essay 'Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.' Digital immigrants all learn at different paces and some adapt better than others which is reffered to as having an 'accent.' Some accents are stronger depending on how much the immigrant adapts to the technology. Examples of stronger accents are people printing out emails instead of reading them on the computer and using new technology as a secondary resource instead of first.

However it can be seen as an important topic as in education the teachers are didgital immigrants and the pupils have a better understanding of the technology than their teachers. Also due to the fact that students and teachers and sudents are learning in such a different way it is hard for the teachers to understand how students can learn in such diferent environemts leading to conflict between teachers and pupils.


People who were born into a world of new technology are known as 'digital natives.' They are used to the native speak of the digital language as they are fluent in using new technologies. Due to the fact that the digital immigrants.

There has been alot of crticism and controversy over this issue as many people who weren't born into 'new technology' feel they have no digital acent and feel the theory is a generalisation and that people of any age can understand or have trouble with using technology it is not down to when you were born.