Millennial-ness

I took the Pew Research Center’s Millennial Quiz this morning and scored an 81. I think that my profile tells me that I am in a good position to connect with and understand my students. The profile also tells me that I should make a conscious effort to keep abreast of developments in digital technology.

Jason Frand describes ten attributes of what he calls “the information-age mind set.” Here is a list of those attributes and brief description of my relationship to each one:

1.     Computers Aren’t Technology – I am 45, so computers are technology to me. My parents had an early Macintosh but I had zero interest in it. And even though I have always used computers at work, it’s only been in the last five or six years that I have started to embrace the digital world.

2.     Internet Better Than TV – The Internet is way better than the TV. That’s why there is no TV in our house. Which is not to say that we don’t watch TV. We stream Netflix and Hulu all the time and on a schedule that fits our lifestyle.

3.     Reality No Longer Real – I get this and it bugs me. Maybe it’s my background in history that makes the altering of images so repugnant. That is until the altered image makes me laugh hard or see something in a different light. Regardless, I am a full-on skeptic and I don’t believe a thing I see or read on the web until I’ve had a chance to verify the information.

4.     Doing Rather Than Knowing – As someone who will start teaching soon (I hope), I think this is the most important Millennial attribute. In the information age, knowing can be irrelevant. But knowing how to do things – including knowing how to find seemingly irrelevant knowledge – is crucial.  If you “know” but you can’t “do” then, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, you might need to get out of the road.

5.     Nintendo over Logic – I will never understand video games. They didn’t interest me as a teen (OK, Pong wasn’t that interesting to anyone) and I definitely don’t get them now. I would rather watch snow melt than play a video game. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find that I am a logic guy. I read directions and it drives my ten-year-old crazy because he is Nintendo to the core. “Just turn it on,” he says, “I’ll figure it out!”

6.     Multitasking Way of Life – I used to engage in multitasking until I realized that it just meant that I was doing many things poorly at the same time. Now, I fight to focus on one thing at a time and that’s always a struggle because there are so many digital distractions.

7.     Typing Rather Than Handwriting – My dad told me to take typing in high school in 1982. I told him I would never need to know how to type. Whoops. So I am slow on the keyboard (but I am faster than hunt-and-peck). The hardest thing that I did last semester was write a Blue Book exam. I’m not kidding. My hand just doesn’t know how to write anymore.

8.     Staying Connected – I like being connected but I love to disconnect. Nothing makes me happier than leaving my cell phone and laptop behind for four or five days. It’s hard to do, but I try to do it once or twice a year.

9.     Zero Tolerance for Delays – I don’t mind delays when I travel. I understand why and how they happen and I don’t do work (or anything, for that matter) that requires me to be in a particular place at a particular time. Delays in communication are different. I have come to expect immediate responses to text messages and emails.

10. Consumer/Creator Blurring – This is a tough one for me. When it comes to learning and teaching, clearly there are benefits to doing your own work. But we all just created blogs using a Blogger template - none of us wrote the code necessary to create our blogs. In a sense, we are back to the knowing versus doing argument. If you need to know, than you should do your own work. If you need to do, then maybe knowing is secondary and you ought to borrow every good idea you can find.

Activity Summary: The Millennial activity underscored the need to keep up with the changes in the digital world. Our students communicate and learn differently than we did, and as educators we will fail if we don’t incorporate the rapidly changing information environment into our classroom approach. By better understanding what it means to be a Millennial, I will be better prepared to meet my students on their turf, so to speak.

Relationship to Standards: This activity relates well to standard 3(d) in that I am using emerging digital tools to support learning. It also relates well to standard 4(c) in that I am modeling digital etiquette related to the use of technology.