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Millennial generation or digital immigrant?
By Mary Madewell
The Paris News
Published August 24, 2007
If you were born since 1982, you are of the “Millennial Generation” in terms of technology, often referred to as “digital natives.”
Those born prior to 1982, probably fit the “digital immigrant” category, making your way in a new land, learning a new language.
This is the age of technology.
Tony Lewis, technology director at Paris Independent School District, spoke about the Millennial Generation and its learning characteristics during one of several sessions presented Thursday as part of professional staff development.
Lewis prefaced his remarks with an computer-assisted presentation, “Shift Happens,” compiled by a Colorado educator to emphasize rapidly changing social and economic factors into today’s world.
•One in four workers today are employed by a company they have been with for less than one year;
•The top 10 jobs in demand for 2010 did not exist in 2004 —
“We’re preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t been invented; and, we are to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems,” Lewis inserted.
•Nintendo invested $140 million in research and development for its latest game and the federal government spent half as much in research for education.
“That’s why Nintendos are so much more fun than going to school,” Lewis quipped.
•My Space has 160 million registered users and the average site is visited 30 times a day.
“If you are not getting regular hits on your site; it must be you,” Lewis joked.
•One in eight couples married last year met on line.
•Google registers 2.7 billion searches each month.
“Google knows everything,” the speaker added.”
•Text messages sent and received each day tops or exceeds the total population of the planet.
“Kids are sending hundreds of messages back and forth; e-mail for them is a thing of the past — too slow,” Lewis inserted.
•A week’s worth of information published in The New York Times is more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th Century.
•New technical information is doubling every two years.
“If you are a college computer technology student, half of what you learned the first year will be outdated your senior year,” Lewis added.
•New fiber optics carry 10 trillion bits per second on a single strand of fiber.
“That is 1,900 CDs or 150 million phone calls every second,” Lewis calculated. “Speed is tripling every six months and is expected to keep doing that for probably 20 years.”
After awing his audience with the presentation, Lewis asked, “What does it all mean to educators?
“That’s why we push technology so much and that’s why we required you attend at least six hours of training and submit a technology-based lesson plan,” Lewis said of requirements of the district’s professional development plan for 2007-2008.
Lewis challenged his audience to change their approach to the classroom and gave the group “some ideas you might try.”
“Kids today are a diverse group who want to learn in their own space; thrive on group interactions; and want to do things that matter,” Lewis said.
“If you are standing in front of the room and writing on a chalkboard, they are probably not paying attention,” he said.
Describing his programming class, Lewis said students choose where they would like to sit, often on the floor and propped up on backpacks.
“They are comfortable,” Lewis said. “Desks are not comfortable.”
Oftentimes, Lewis said he can be found sitting with his students.
“I’ve always hated being behind a desk,” Lewis said. “It’s like a wall between me and them, and I am constantly pacing out there with them.”
Lesson planning to make things real for students is not easy, but it can be done for most every subject, he challenged.
“Maybe you can use the headlines in the newspaper to see what is going on in the real world and incorporate that into your lessons using technology,” Lewis suggested.
He also suggested using iPODs to record lessons, or have students write and record lessons to be shared with others.
“If you have a student who thinks he can teach a lesson, let him try,” Lewis said.
Lewis ended Thursday’s presentation by sharing what he considers “punishment” if students are not behaving and not getting their work done.
“I make sure they sit in straight rows and I won’t let them talk with each other,” he said. “I lecture the whole period.”
“Cutting off their interaction is the worst punishment I can give them,” Lewis said, adding, “Just keep that in mind."
“These are things I think of as punishment; but a lot of these things may be things that some people do every day.”
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