So, this week for class we read The
App Generation, and as always I am going to pull some of the main points I
thought would be most helpful (for myself) to recognize. By the way, sorry for
the pun in the title of this blog, but it seems appropriate that I would poke
fun at the next generation, when there are so many people from the prior
generation that constantly are putting me down for being a millennial. (well you
all are
ALL lazy and selfish, you don’t work
hard enough to make a living, no wonder you
ALL live at home! You have
everything
handed to you! In my day I walked 100 miles uphill in the snow to go to school!
We had
REAL diseases; in my day there
was no vaccines! When I was
YOUR age, I had a house and 7 kids. ETC.) But I digress.
 |
| No, but really, are we all that different? :Cue the song Why can't we be friends: |
 |
| But, it's all OUR fault. SIGH. |
 |
I had two houses, a wife, two cars, seven kids, no loans, zero debt, and a condo in Florida by the age 30.
Cool, thanks. |
I thought this book was extremely
interesting because I myself am a millennial so I kind of felt like this book
(in some ways) was written about me or my friends. I found myself nodding with
the positives and cringing along with the negatives. Millennials are famous
for: freedom, customization, scrutiny, integrity, collaborative, entertainment,
speed, and innovation. These things are not all necessarily a positive. For
example, while we are more used to freedom in the world as a whole- we do not
feel safe, we scrutinize everyone and everything—AKA me in a nutshell. Two of
my best friends do not have their drivers licenses (which is part of the
attributes to identity), which I had never thought about how that was really an
unusual phenomenon! I think that it is really interesting that the author
discusses how the parents have impacted this generation, for better or worse.
I really saw this in our activity
this week when we made the posters about all of these ways to describe digital
natives. I also thought our discourse about the fact that digital immigrants
are no longer an applicable term (for most people) because most of our lives
are so integrated with technology that we are truly all natives. I also liked
when we talked about the differences between identity, intimacy, and
imagination because it was really interesting to see those attributes and flaws
in my own personality. This is also pertinent to my students because we need to
realize their own drawbacks or strengths to teach them better. For instance, the fact that I am teaching my
3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students pretty
rigorously about cyber safety and keeping themselves safe online in general is
a testament to how much our world is changing. No one has EVER taught me this,
and I am only roughly 15 years older than my kids I am teaching. So I am
teaching them a topic that has never been taught before this generation. Words
like apps, cyber bullying, personal vs. private information,
upstander/bystander, are now apart of their every day vocabulary (or this is
what I am trying to accomplish!)
This is also where the idea of
‘”the medium is the message” idea comes into play, as well. We need to be
relating to our students with what we are saying, but the medium of our
presentation and activities. That is the most important thing that I took away
from this week. Once again, as Dawn said in class, teachers and students have
the same patterns of technology use but neither uses it as innovatively as we
COULD be, in order for learners (and teachers) to be designers. This is our
ultimate goal, so I found The App Generation to not only give me background of
the way my students will be thinking and their personalities, but the deeper
meaning of how technology has permeated their lives in a deeper way, which we
as educators need to be cognizant of and embrace.
