Tertiary teaching in New Zealand/Blended learning/Why blended learning?/Digital natives and digital immigrants

Digital natives and digital immigrants [[Image:Monkeys on computers.jpg|right]]
Are you a native or an immigrant in the country in which you are living? Does it make a difference? Most people would say yes, it certainly makes a difference to how much you know about your place of residency. But does it make a difference to how you think? Do people who have been born and raised in U.S.A. think differently from the English? Is it possible for a teacher from India to teach in New Zealand? Of course the answer is yes, but there might be some things to learn about your students! Marc Prensky, in a very important paper published in 2001, suggested that most teachers are in that situation - that our students think differently from their teachers because of their familiarity with digital technology.