I've been thinking about how digital immigrants can come from such different cultures. No matter how immersed we may be in technology there are times when our first culture rears its ugly head. Today we had a "cultural" battle at my house. To understand, one must first have some background on the digital immigrants in our home and the cultures for which we emerged. I grew up in a home where video games were strongly discouraged yet we had one of the first computers in our area. My dad had a career in electronics and was always on the 'cutting edge' of computer literacy and technology. In our home, we were taught to embrace new technology and make it work for us in the best possible way. My husband grew up in a home where gaming was a family event but computers were considered a little frightening. He spent most of his time with his grandmother who to this day cannot work a calculator no matter how many times we try to show her; DVD players and VCRs are incomprehensible to her. In my husband's home, the general idea was to fear all technology until it had been thoroughly read about, and used by a variety of users in a variety of circumstances. Today, our culture of origin reared its ugly head and drew our battle lines. We purchased a new riding lawn mower. I am ecstatic about this and have had to do some fast convincing to even get my husband to the store to THINK about such a purchase. My digital immigrant husband has never been on a riding lawn mower in his life and the jury is still out on whether or not he'll get on our newly purchased lawn mower. THe mower was delivered a week ago. Since delivery, my husband has poured over the instruction manual learning about all the various features and how they work. Today was th BIG Day - we were going to break in our new mower. I jump on the mower having no idea where anything actually is planning to learn as I went. (because in my culture, you always made a good, healthy attempt before reading any instructions) My husband stands over me with all the instruction booklets in hand declaring that he is certain he will cut his foot off with this thing. Needless to say, I initiated our new mower today while my husband is still pondering if this was a safe purchase. Do digital immigrants exist? Yes, come spend a day at my house. Is there a vast range of cultural differences among immigrants? Asolutely, not everyone has embraced the technology movement with open arms. Can two digital immigrants of varying degrees still raise a digital native? That is yet to be seen . . . if my daughter can find a balance between her technology fearful dad and her "know just enough to be dangerous" mother, she just might turn out to be an ok digital native.