Winning digital natives over

Being Digital Natives, they are different from us, the Digital Immigrants. They think differently, pay attention to different things, basically, they have a different mindset. What is Top of our list is no longer the same as theirs. Just how can we, the Digital Immigrant teachers in these Digital Native students over?

Well, Digital Natives are used to receiving information fast. They like to multi-task and prefer graphics and pictures to texts. They work better with a 'reward' system than the 'punishment' system. They love games and well, aren't exactly into what we call, serious work.
( http://www.slideshare.net/cliotech/engaging-digital-natives )

With that, we can try to figure them out and try to engage them. Social environments are a good way to kickstart. Involve the students in discussions, debates;allow them to go online to do it- blogs, socialbookmarkings, concept map sharing, wikis.. get them to comment on one another, improve themselves as knowledge builds within their community of friends, classmates etc. Design appropriate games to engage them in the more subtle way. Probably make them addicted to educational gaming( thats ideal of course ) . I guess we have to let them know that, although we are digital immigrants, we are not digital ignorant! Students can still communicate with us, via what they are more comfortable with, and we gladly accept their way to work things out.
Digital Natives, are keen on multi-tasking. which is good and bad. We have to teach them concentration- show them how by concentrating, things get worked out better in some cases. They love gaming. But too much gaming may not be good for them either( in the case of game addicts). They have to be disciplined enough to control their wants and desires. These, may not be part of curriculum, but they are essential in the Digital Age. Discipline is common to all generations. Such lessons will not go outdated and are important all the time. They like to participate and interact. We could tap on that and promote creative thinking within the classroom.
I think understanding the likes and dislikes, can allow us to figure how to make them work better. We can use them to work to our benefit( design games? though hat would be difficult) and make them engaged in learning. Forcing the old, traditional way of learning on the Digital Natives is a big no-no. It would work like a turn off switch on them. ( referring to the shirt that says ' i am not ADD, i am just not listening') They would probably regard you as some antique living in this new age. And we do not want to have this gap between us and the students.. We want to be make them open up to us, that way, they would be more willing to learn from us, and enjoy the lessons.. ( well, hopefully)

Work with the Digital Natives, figure out what works with them the best, and use it to our benefits. Use it to educate them. Makes our job easier and make lessons and learning more engaging.

On a side note, i found this cool E-tool- Slideshare.net
Probably Dr Tan has already found it, but, well.. Its new to me! ahahaaa. and the link above is an example of a ppt slide being shared- gained lots of insight from that powerpoint. It was 113 slides long! like, Wow.