Using Emerging Technology to Improve Your School Library Program

Session 2: Millennials & Digital Brains

What is a Millennial?

• iGeneration• Generation Y• Digital Native• Echo Boomers• Net Generation• Generation Next• Facebook Generation

People bornin the 80s & 90s?

What’s your Millennial score?

http://pewresearch.org/millennials/quiz/

Watch TV?Read newspapers?Play videogames?Mobile or landline?Text much?Value big $$$

jobs?Thoughts on race?R U an activist?Network online?R U religious?Parents married?Tattoos?Piercings?Political views?Age?

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Common assumption #1

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Questions to consider

• Who are these kids?• Why MUST we use emerging tech

to teach them?• What should you say to the

naysayers?

Session 2 is about 2 problems:

• My administrators won’t let...–me set up accounts in social media– us use open source/free technology– students communicate with

teachers online, or visa versa– kids access social networks in

school– Yadayadayada (you get the picture)

• 90+% of my kids get free/reduced lunch, and they don’t have Internet access at home

Problem #2

Who’s online? The Internet by age groups

Who’s online? The Internet by age groups

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Ah yes… The fear factor!

Palfrey, John, and Urs Gasser. Born Digital. New York: Basic, 2008. Print.

Reprinted with permission

“Fear is the single biggest obstacle to getting started on [the] path…where we realize the potential of digital technology and the way that Digital Natives are using it…

Parents aren’t the only ones who fear the impact of the Internet on young people. Teachers worry that they are out of step with the Digital Natives they are teaching, that the skills they have imparted over time are becoming either lost or obsolete, and that the pedagogy of our educational system cannot keep up with the changes in the digital landscape.

Librarians, too, are reimagining their role…But as a culture of fear emerges around the online environment, we must put these real threats into perspective; our children and future generations have tremendous opportunities in store for them, not in spite of the digital age, but because of it.

We see promise in the way that Digital Natives are interacting with digital information, expressing themselves in social environments, creating new art forms, dreaming up new business models, and starting new activist ventures…

A lot of the things we’re worried about—bullying, [cheating], stalking, copyright violations, and so forth—are things we’ve handled for decades, if not centuries. We can, as a society, handle them in the digital age, too, we too often overestimate the ways in which the online environment is different from real space, to our detriment. Too often, parents and teachers aren’t even involved in the decisions that young people are making. They cut themselves off from their Digital Native children because the language and cultural barriers are too great.

Rather than banning the technologies or leaving kids to use them on their own in their bedrooms—two of the most common approaches—parents and teachers need to let Digital Natives be their guides into this new, connected way of living. Parents and teachers need not go it alone…

One more thing to teach???

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MFA wha????

Pink, Daniel. A Whole New Mind. New York: Riverhead, 2005. Print.

Reprinted with permission

Conceptual Age

• Can someone overseas do it cheaper?

• Can a computer do it faster?• Is what I am offering in demand

in a age of abundance?

High Concept, High Touch

Pink, Daniel. A Whole New Mind. New York: Riverhead, 2005. Print.

MBA MFA

Reprinted with permission

The Six Senses

• Design• Story• Symphony• Empathy• Play• Meaning

The New Untouchables

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Imagination to…

• to invent smarter ways to do old jobs

• find energy-saving ways to provide new services

• devise new ways to attract old customers

• develop new ways to combine existing technologie

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Life and career skills • Flexibility and adaptability • Initiative and self-direction • Social and cross-cultural skills • Productivity and accountability • Leadership and responsibility

21st Century Skills (P21)

Learning and innovation skills • Creativity and innovation • Critical thinking and problem solving

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Information, media and technology skills • Information literacy• Media literacy • ICT literacy

Our original questions

• Who are these kids?• Why MUST we use emerging tech

to teach them?• What should you say to the

naysayers?

Let’s talk about it!