I do believe there is definitely a difference in the way that students who have grown up in this digital age, learn in the classroom. There is so much technology that has rapidly advanced in recent years, and many students have a plethora of encounters with such devices. My nephew is a great example to back this theory up.
He has grown up with cell phones, play station and now has play station three, has a smart phone, is very advanced in his technology abilities, and yet has a hard time in school. He is in sports, but every spare moment he has, he is playing his games, or on his phone downloading the latest application, which has to be better than the last. He is all about the speed of things, and hates waiting and is very impatient. He has a difficult time reading, he reads the words on a page, but his mind is elsewhere and has difficulties with reading comprehension. But, when playing his game, he'll read anything, very fast, and is all about the way things are done so fast in the game. I've watched his demeanor and movements while playing the game, his mind is working so fast and the controls are able to keep up with his pace. His phone works the same way, he needs things to be done quickly, that is how he is able to comprehend what to do next in the game.
But when it comes to academics, he tries to rush things but has such a difficult time learning. Things don't seem to work or move as fast as his mind is working, and he gets frustrated. I would suggest having a lesson differentiated and allow him to use some sort of technology when it comes to reading. Have him read a book or story the class is working on, on the computer. I would want him to use something that can keep up with his thinking, so that he is able to grasp the material. This would give him some familiarity and comfort when having to do school work, and have it be on a computer as opposed to the traditional paper back book. He could also listen to the book and follow along, and then doing some exercises as an informal assessment on the computer to see whether or not hewas able to comprehend that time around.
The computer I have at home is a Dell Tower Computer. It has windows XP, is 1GB. Intel is 1.6 HZ. It's hard drive is 100 GB.
