The race for the top, is out of control. Distinguishing oneself in the net generation is becoming increasingly more dangerous. I even find myself so motivated a headache daily is not uncommon. Now I find myself in a bad way. I must work full-time to support my family and receive a Masters degree at the same time. This does not allow me to put community service time in. The author suggests, based on the reading, my resume will is no longer pertinent. Perhaps filling the attention deficit we learn by exploration. A net gen student can not just accept the professor's word they must find the answers themselves. Learning completely virtually, in my opinion can be done, I have done it. Was the learning as effective, well that depends, on you? If you are a person who disciplines themselves to learn, you will be successful. This independence towards the ability to learning, is an innate characteristic, and can be carried into group learning. It is funny that visual images are so powerful for net gen's but thrive on RSS, this is a contradiction in my opinion. I thought it was funny that everybody is cashless. I am cashless because I have no money, and when I do have money I only use debit/credit cards.
Chapter 6 brings on many questions, about how each generation learns, interacts, and conducts daily activities. The begining of the chapter as a little offensive calling net gens shallow readers believing everything that is read on the internet. I paused and reflected should I believe what I am reading now? The chapter then moves towards education and how to educate each generation. The author expresses the challenges of educators. There is no standardized way of teaching the net gen as believed with prior generations. Throughout the chapter the author predicts net generation students, commenting that students stressors include lack of immediacy by other students/teachers for online classes. I sometimes agree that with all the technology abound teachers and other students should be constantly connected to the internet. Although it is not viable to constantly be reflecting and posting thoughts on the internet. If you did your head may explode. The writer touches on how personal technologies are better then university tools for students to interact and how schools are trying keep up with the personal technologies. Sounds easy to me just keep raising tuition costs, at least they would be justified. Overall this chapters theme was not very informative and could have used some more examples to convince me of a conclusion.
Chapter 7
This happened to be a more interesting chapter for me, the author admits that so far data is of the qualitative state, this means data may not be completely accurate. I found it comical that the first studies were done in the state of Wisconsin in 2004. For some reason I can not see the cheese state representing the nation especially in 2004. Another comical point a study found that low grade point averages are congruent with the time spent playing video games, wow breaking news. Out of the survey one interesting finding was that students are not educated in specialized applications. This is interesting because the survey sounds like all students are taking liberal arts degrees. I did find one contradiction, the reading mentions that students are not developed writers, then goes on to say that schools should approach technology like they approach writing. I can only shake my head. Then when I read that, young men overate there skills in technology applications I questioned the author, was he ever a young man? Some survey findings I discounted like a students GPA not a factor in class choice, I am thinking to myself that is because students generally have a curriculum to follow. Later in the chapter the author states that digital natives want prompt feed back by instructor and classmates. I thought for a second and then realized we are in 2010 were information is instant and we all want things now not later. I am in total agreement that if the university buys into technology then students will preform better. Of course how they do this is he hard part. A education center can either raise tuition costs or partner with corporations to provide discounts. At the end of the chapter the subject of course management systems came to light. This tool is essential in the education scene, it is now apparent at the middle school level in our district. Fortunately, this tool is is not viewed as a negative, and why should it be. students use it for tracking grades, calender events and assignments. Ours is moodle, does it enable instructors to meet the needs of the students, possibly? I think that this tool is a partnership between the student and the instructor. So the big question of this chapter, can schools harness the power of technology and adapt as fast as the technology changes? I think schools can if the thinking of the school changes. For example, schools should provide specific guidence to what technology a student should invest in and then provide some type of discount. As the author states,"we are witnessing a social change,"unfortunately sometimes turning the ship around may take a nautical mile.
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