1. What are the characteristics of students in the digital age?
Hi, My name is Cyborg. You may call me Cy for short. I, like you, appear to be a typical carbon based life form. My electrochemical CPU comprises 20% of my total energy output. As I say, like you, we appear to be quite similar. However, I am a digital native. Digispeak is my native tongue. I understand best when your tweets are 140 characters or less and your SMSs are 160 characters or less. And don’t bore me with your linear lectures thinking you are making things clear to me. I need lots of variables thrown at me at one time; visual, verbal, tactile, you name it. Just please, please make your output relevant to my multidimensional world where I exist as real as well as avatar. My identity is manifold and your addressing me according to your small-minded, preconceived notions of who and what I am annoy me to the uttermost. When you do this, I may look like I’m listening but really I have tuned you out long ago; not by volition so much as just because my brain doesn’t connect to that type of input. It’s like my brain is a British electrical socket and your method of reaching me is an American plug. Did I mention disconnect?
I know, I know. You’re gonna tell me it’s always been that way. The generation gap and all. But hey, your generation experienced Future Shock. You freaked out when you saw advances coming at you faster than you could assimilate them. My generation has never known anything BUT high velocity advancements hitting us faster than we can learn. We get it. Adapt. That’s our modus operandi. We adapt. We learn and then throw it away as fast as it gets replaced by the next new thing. Your precious memories are your treasure. Our fantasies are our treasure. Stop living in the past, in your stale knowledge-base, and smell the future! Your fear of the future (for our safety) doesn’t help. We haven’t a clue but we know we can adapt. You don’t have a clue and you keep acting like you know what we need to learn. Face it. We’re all explorers in a brave new world. Let’s forge ahead together!
2. What are your “secret” strategies to work with digital students?
Since today’s educators are being called upon to lead an uncertain generation into an unknown future, it behooves them to bear the qualities of an Explorer. Imagine when Columbus set sail from Spain near the end of the 15th century in search of a New World. What did he do to gain support of the King and Queen? What kind of leader was he to secure a crew of men willing to sail to the ends of the earth?
Certainly he had to be a visionary who could convey his dream with conviction, raising support for high-risk undertakings where the winnings are all or nothing. By today’s standards we need to coach others in order to build and maintain morale regardless of the outlook. He would need to pursue his goal without looking back; willing to risk the certain past for an uncertain future. We would be willing to burn any bridge that gets in the way… till death do us part. (posted 6/6/09)
