“NEED A SPECTACULAR SPEAKER FOR UPCOMING EVENT?”

Dear Conference/Meeting Planners and Directors of Centers and Faculty Development:

Have you picked your speakers for your fall 2011–2015 events or next decade yet? No? Then you need to get on the stick.

Have I got a speaker for you! I just saw him in Calgary and San Diego and he will blow your beach chair right out from under you.

With all of the financial cutbacks, you may be crunched for funds to import super-star speakers, but you can consider those lower on the food chain or not even on the food chain, but dangling on a hook like bait.

For example, I know this speaker personally (he sends me birthday e-mails) who will work with you to cut expenses, plus he will pay your mother’s social security in August if the President doesn’t.

This means he will

1. sleep in your garage (with a bucket of ice if you don’t have ac) instead of a hotel, but not before washing your vehicle,
2. fly WITH Southwest’s free baggage,
3. hitch a ride from the airport to your garage,
4. walk to his home airport (25 mi) to save mileage and parking fees,
5. deliver his handout to faculty door-to-door,
6. eat just navel oranges & Fig Newtons,
7. drink tap water only, and
8. not tip anyone.

Those sacrifices can make a major dent in the expenses. He will also slash honoraria under 5 digits to fit your budget. Should I continue? Is this a dream come true?

Anyway, he speaks on 17 topics on humor and multimedia, Net Generation, multigenerational classroom/workplace, stress reduction, student assessment, faculty evaluation, and PowerPoint. Abstracts are available on his Website (www.ronberk.com). His most popular topics appear on his LinkedIn profile (www.linkedin.com/in/ronberk) and 2011 brochure.

Testimonials by buckets of clients, some of whom may be your peers, and a few extraterrestrials are listed on the brochure and posted on those sites FYI.

If you would like further information, please contact the speaker, who is currently preparing his PowerPoint in a garage in Biloxi, which is in Wyoming, while sucking key limes.

Have a wonderful decade and go pick up your beach chair!

An anonymous blogger

COPYRIGHT © 2011 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

“DOES ‘THE SOCIAL NETWORK’ HAVE IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING?” Part 3

WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT TSN?

Writing & Directing. Scalpel-sharp, machine-gun fire dialogue from The West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin coupled with David Fincher’s thriller-paced direction turns the typically tedious, mundane, boring world of Website construction into a gripping, exhilarating, mesmerizing adventure, consistent with the Net Gener’s “twitch speed” of playing video games. It’s like a 2-hour sprint. You won’t fall asleep.

Transition to Web 2.0. The activities chronicled as Facebook was being built represent the quintessential 2003 example of the transition from Web 1.0 to 2.0, from “read-only,” passive viewing Websites to “read-write” participatory sites. Facebook ushered in a new generation of sites that required user interaction, active participation, and content creation. Users contributed content in the form of their personal profiles, pics, comments, etc.

Social Networking. TSN is a mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime success story that changed the world of social networking. The story is like the social network itself, still in motion and constantly being revised and rewritten. Zuckerberg started a global phenomenon he can’t figure out how to finish.

MESSAGE FOR TEACHING

Watching TSN reveals the techie potential that some of your students may possess, or not. The issue is assessing and tapping your students’ abilities and potential. Here are some thoughts:

1. Measure your students’ tech skills
2. How even or uneven are they?
3. How can you or other personnel/resources level the playing field to a certain standard of performance?
4. Consider how their skills may be applied in your course
5. Leverage the momentum of TSN while it’s hot. Explore how Facebook and other social media can be used as systematic teaching tools

GO SEE IT!

As a movie, TSN received critical acclaim with 97% of the critics giving it a positive review with an average score of 9.1/10 based on 217 reviews. It has been characterized as “impeccably scripted, beautifully directed, and filled with fine performances.” If you can squeeze it into your super-busy schedule, GO, GO. Sorkin’s zingy, dazzling wordplay with his scathing wit are worth the price of admission alone.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

“DOES ‘THE SOCIAL NETWORK’ HAVE IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING?” Part 2

ROMANTICIZING THE WEBMASTER: "This Is Your Time!"

Who would have thought that the tapping on laptop keyboards and scribbling algorithms on a windowpane (not since John Nash in A Beautiful Mind) could possibly be as exciting as a James Bond or Jason Bourne spy flick? Welcome to “GeekWorld”! There’s an almost romantic aura to punching those keys at lightning speed to code a Website. The movie glorifies computer genius. Webmasters and IT professionals, listen up: “This may be your time.” It certainly is in TSN.

SIGNIFICANCE OF TSN TO THE NET GENERATION

As Sean “Napster-founder” Parker says to Zuckerberg in the film, “This is our time.” He may well have been addressing the entire Facebooking-Twittering community of Net Geners.

The goal was not to make money off the site, at least, not early on, because it will lose “all cool and credibility.” However, Zuckerberg’s genius combined with his social insecurities to create a computer chip on his shoulder the size of Quasimodo’s hump played out in his relationships throughout the film.

This film is the 1st detailed screen portrait of the Net Geners by mostly Net Gen actors. It conveyed their views on money, personal and professional relationships, careers, and responsibility to society. The movie also revealed their character, integrity, business ethics, and values, although loyalty, betrayal, and jealousy were the primary driving forces.

HOW DOES TSN DEPICT NET GENER CHARACTERISTICS?

You bet! All of my research and writing on the Net Generation over the past 2 years hit me in the gizzard as I was watching TSN. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay and David Fincher’s direction represented the confluence of so many Net Gener learner and social characteristics: tech savvy, creation of Internet content, operating at twitch speed, learning by inductive discovery, teamwork and collaboration, pressure to succeed, need for instant gratification, embodiment of change and activity, confident and assertive, trial and error problem solving, and craving social interaction—face-to-face and, especially, virtual connectivity.

TSN is like mouse candy to a Net Gener baby. What does Facebook represent in the transition to Web 2.0 technology? What message does it send teachers? Stick around for the final blog, coming to a PC/Mac near you.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

“DOES ‘THE SOCIAL NETWORK’ HAVE IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING?” Part 1

THIS IS NOT A REVIEW!

I don’t write movie reviews, but I do search for what I can learn as a teacher from movies, TV programs, plays, and musicals, and then apply those ideas in the classroom. What message can you glean from the content, dialogue, pacing, events, and characters? I reflected on those aspects of Avatar last spring and wrote about a few walk-away implications for teaching. My bias is to dismiss the negative and contentious and, instead, extract the few nuggets that teach and inspire us to consider those techniques we might not otherwise even think of using.

WHAT’S TSN ALL ABOUT?

This time it’s The Social Network. It’s the story of Mark Zuckerberg and how he founded Facebook. He was transformed from a computer genius, socially maladroit Harvard student and dropout into the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 23. The screenplay is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires. However, this flick is much more than the drama about relationships and lawsuits surrounding Zuckerberg’s quest to create the largest social networking Website. Reviewer Andy Lowe subtitled it “How to Lose Friends and Influence People.”

WHAT’S WRONG WITH TSN?

Before examining TSN’s implications for teaching, let’s be clear on what Zuckerberg perceives as an egregious error in the movie regarding his motivation to build Facebook. In a video interview by entrepreneur wannabes at Stanford University posted on YouTube in October 2010, Zuckerberg said the film misrepresented his motivation as “wanting to get girls and erect some kind of social institution.” That was dead wrong. He stated that “They [director and writer] just can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.” Incorrect pronouns aside, Zuckerberg said they instead paid meticulous attention to details such as his wardrobe, “Every single shirt and fleece in the movie is actually a shirt or fleece that I own.” At least, he wasn’t driven by money.

My next blog will examine TSN’s portrayal of the Net Generation. Stay tuned.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

AVATAR: A FEW LESSONS ON TEACHING Part II

Avatar conveyed several messages, some of which have been interpreted as offensive. However, I received one positive key educational message:

All teachers on this planet should probably gather intel on their Net Geners and leverage that intel in their teaching strategies, maybe even teach them English. Teachers can be temporarily transported into the rich, diverse, techy world of their students.

Here are 3 steps to consider in this process:

1. Understand your students: You need to thoroughly understand them and their culture, behaviors, habits, and latest technologies, even iPad, should it take off. To ignore your students’ culture, mindset, and world is unwise. You should really get to know your students one-on-one and as a group. Collect “intel” on their interests, intelligence strengths, learning styles, and the way they think and behave.

2. Leverage their characteristics, behaviors, and habits: Use your “intel” of their characteristics to design and custom tailor your teaching strategies for them. Consider each characteristic and how one or more teaching techniques can draw on their specific interests, intelligences, and learning styles. You should be sensitive to their individual strengths and weaknesses and try to build on the former before helping them to compensate for the latter. Your strategies should involve a one-size-fits-one approach.

3. Teach new content with different strategies: The connections between you and your students and their characteristics and your teaching strategies create a foundation of trust and credibility. Now you can add new content and other strategies to your teaching. Experiment with the latest technologies. Your students are now on board and will eagerly assist you on that journey. Solicit their input. Involve them in decisions in your learner-centered environment.

With or without Avatar, these steps can improve your teaching of this bright-eyed-and–bushy-tailed group of frisky Net Geners you see almost every day. The extraordinary experience of Avatar just punctuated the importance of these thoughts.

For further intel on teaching strategies matched to Net Gener learner characteristics, checkout Articles 2008a and 2009a on my Web under Publications (see link in margin to right). 

As always, let me know your thoughts, especially if you are an Avatar fan. Have a fantastic teaching experience this spring!

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

AVATAR: A FEW LESSONS ON TEACHING Part I

There is something about the flick Avatar that seemed really familiar.

Supermodel-like, 10-feet tall, blue-skinned, golden-eyed Na’vi aliens with tails? "NO!"
Kaleidoscopic and bioluminescent flora and fauna? "NO!"
A 3-D IMAX experience that closes the space between you and the alien world to render it up close and personal. "THAT’S IT!" Avatar makes the computer-generated sci-fi world of Pandora (aka Na’vi-land) seem real.

It’s almost like being in your classroom with your Net Gener students—YOU in your professorial-Gen X (born 1961–1981) or Boomer (born 1943–1960) world AND your STUDENTS (born 1982–2003) in their high-tech, twitch-speed, remixed, digital, mobile, always-on media world. Their world may be perceived as a bit alien by many professors. It’s a close encounter of the Net Gener kind!

However, Avatar-the-flick is much more than that. It’s a journey into eye-popping visuals with sensory overload of imaginative vistas, creatures, and characters of titanic proportions. It uses state-of-the-art technologies to create avatars— genetically engineered hybrids of human DNA mixed with Na’vi DNA from the distant planet of Pandora. These scientifically-grown Na’vi lookalikes permit mere-mortal, ex-military mercenaries and scientists to be transformed into avatars.

Why? What’s the point of creating avatars? To make buckets of moola. Yes, but there’s another plot-related reason: They see, fear, taste, and feel like the natives and have all of the same physical characteristics and adeptness. The avatar versions of our hero ex-Marine Jake Sully and Dr. Grace Augustine, an exobiologist and head of the Avatar Program, permitted them to infiltrate the Na’vi culture and gather intelligence (aka intel) about the natives to convince them to leave their home turf.

Colonel Miles Quaritch, head of security and psycho-warrior, who had a profound disregard for Pandora’s inhabitants, ordered Sully: “I want you to learn from inside, to gain their trust.” The avatars were supposed to set up schools and teach them English (Is there any other language?). This was a computer-generated, undercover covert operation. If the natives didn’t leave of their own free will, Quaritch would blow them to kingdom come, digitally-speaking, of course.

Notwithstanding a romantic subplot between Sully and Neytiri, the violence designed to wipe out the Na’vi humanoids, and loads of political-social-economic connotations, Avatar suggested to me one key educational message, which, due to space limitations here, will be described tomorrow. You don’t want to miss it.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

A Tribute to 40 Years of SESAME STREET: What Can Higher Education Learn?

After 40 years and more than 4100 episodes broadcast in 120 countries, Sesame Street has established a standard for education of all youth. This Emmy-award winning program is the most effective educational children’s program in history. The creative forces behind Sesame used engagement techniques and technology before it was easy and fashionable. What can higher education learn from Sesame Street?

In this visual-learner, wired-for-sound Net Generation of students, 1st grade through graduate school, should we consider integrating live people (faculty and students), muppets, animation, cartoon characters, celebrities, music, and video clips with people and animals in our teaching? Sesame Street is fun and funny. Their use of parody and satire is brilliant. Isn't learning supposed to be FUN? Why do so many faculty dismiss "fun" as a criterion for learning? They have probably sucked the life out of their teaching and students. Sesame models basic principles of teaching we all should follow.


Multimedia-wise, the music and videos are used almost nonstop throughout the programs and even in the extremely popular “Elmo’s World” segment. A multimedia approach undergirds the teaching of basic academic and life skills. The lyrics are chock full of content to help kids remember numbers, arithmetic, geometric forms, letters, words, cognitive processes, and classification. Catchy melody, upbeat tempos excite children and keep their attention, while slipping the content into long-term memory. Researchers found that when the music and action was stopped, such as on Sesame Street during dialogue between adults, the children stopped watching (Fisch & Truglio, 2001).

This music-action-video formula to learning deserves serious consideration by all faculty. It is especially apropos for this generation of students. They have minimal patience with course requirements and the attention span of goat cheese (Berk, 2008a). They want everything NOOW.

Their behaviors, however, are by choice. They can spend hours playing video games or other activities in which they are interested and engaged (Prensky, 2006); they just find most courses boring. For more than a decade, 40+ % of college students nationwide report “they are frequently bored in class” (Pryor et al., 2009). Unless the content is on their radar screens, it’s likely to be rated “boring.”



Can faculty create adult student versions of Sesame Street in their live face-to face and online classrooms? Sure. Why not? The application of music and video technology will be a start to break the mold of traditional teaching practices. (Note: Instructors at not-for-profit teaching institutions are permitted to use music and video clips in their face-to-face as well as online classes under the “Fair Use” doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Law.)


For further details on using music and videos in teaching, you can download two articles on those topics from www.ronberk.com (under dropdown for Publications, click Articles and links to 2008b and 2009b PDFs).


Today’s blog was brought to you by the letter “M” and the number “40.” I wish Sesame another 40 years of amazing success with our little tikes and their parents, some of whom may even be faculty.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

What’s the SINGLE BEST STRATEGY to Boost Response Rates with Online Student Evaluations?

After the last few post-Halloween blogs, you’re probably sick of this topic and the dribbles of info in each blog. Sorry about that. This is the final installment on the “you know what.”


What is the BOTTOMLINE, HANDS-DOWN and UP, BEST STRATEGY TO USE? (Note: You don’t find this type of excitement and suspense in every blog. Brace yourself. Here it comes.) ANSWER: Withhold the posting of final grades. If your registrar is super-efficient at posting grades online in a timely fashion, you’re sunk. That is usually not a problem, because he or she has a bazillion courses to process.


If students are given a 48-hour window following the final exam or project within which to complete the evals, post the grades online on your course Website ASAP. Tell the students in advance both in class and online when they will be posted. That’s the academic version of a “grade (as opposed to movie) trailer” or teaser. This quick post will be perceived as a monster-size carrot or hot fudge sundae to your students. (Note: Certainly there are some courses where students can compute their own final grades, but they need the scores or grades from the final exam or project.)


We can leverage this Net Generation’s characteristics to maximize the response rates we need. Why should they bother to rate our performance? Although there may be some legitimate intrinsic reasons, why take a chance? Go after the extrinsic ones. As noted in my August 2009 blog series, these Net Geners have a need for speed, immediate gratification, and quick feedback on performance, plus they are driven to achieve, feel pressure to succeed, and expect rapid responses from us on everything. Receiving grades “immediately” feeds into these characteristics.



Institutions engaging in this practice over the past few years, including my own, have reported 80–90%+ response rates for most all courses with buckets of typed comments to open-ended or unstructured questions to boot. It might be worth giving it a whirl at your institution.


Let me know your thoughts and experiences with this issue and any other techniques you have used successfully to boost response rates.


COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Four Recent Trends in Book Publishing All Authors Need to Know

As you are conceptualizing your masterpiece, you should be aware of 4 major trends in book publishing:

1. publishers are moving toward “Print on Demand” (POD), instead of printing several thousand copies and storing them in their warehouses, to cut costs,


2. there is a constantly increasing demand for electronic versions of “print” books, such as e-books, Amazon’s kindle books, and audio books, so that both print and/or electronic books will be published,


3. nonfiction book lengths, with the exception of textbooks, are decreasing (100-200 book pages can become best sellers), inasmuch as publishing costs, book prices, time constraints, and a visually-oriented younger market of Net Geners are pushing for “quick reads,” and


4. the availability of online marketing through Amazon, social media, and blogging is cracking the traditionally, hard-to-crack world of bricks-and-mortar bookselling and multi-hyphenated words; book shopping online is BIG business.

My next blog will examine your options for book publishing in today’s marketplace, including the differences between trade and academic publishing.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Secret Strategies for Writing "Academic" Books: Part II

As a follow-up to my previous blog, I would add one more criterion to the list for Picking the right topic: (c) Fill a need and want in your niche. That can greatly improve the salability of your book. What information does your target audience need and want? The trick is to match your expertise, passion, and your niche’s need on the topic. That magical match will produce a book that’s credible, salable to your audience, and fun to write.

Now let’s move on to the next strategy:

2. How to Create Chapters Quickly and Easily: Writing chapters from scratch or even a detailed topic outline can be excruciatingly painful. Where do you begin? As I’ve said elsewhere, “It’s like eating one of those dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. Once you forklift your filet of T-Rex off your grill, which is the size of Wyoming, where do you take your first bite? Tough decision.”

Fortunately, as academicians, we’re not only required to write books, but also journal articles, chapters for edited volumes, research reports, wedding invitations for our daughters, and parking violations. So we have plenty of writing practice. Here’s the SECRET STRATEGY I’ve used for years (Are you ready? Getting excited? Bet ya thought blogs couldn’t be this much fun!): convert your published articles into chapters. There it is. It takes the guess work out of what to write because you already wrote it. Ah Ha!! Some of you may already do that. As most pastors say, “Let’s unpack this a bit further.”

Here are a few issues to consider:

(a) Write articles on related topics: Most of us generate articles and research publications that follow one major theme or passion of ours. They should hinge together under a common head or rubric. (Personal Note: For example, over the past decade I was passionate about testing new teaching techniques to connect with this Net Generation of students. Almost all students hate statistics, but this generation had other characteristics that made stat more challenging to teach. My research and articles focused on these techniques: humor, music, videos, and improvisation. I also did keynotes and workshops for faculty and administrators on those topics, plus continued to test the effectiveness of the techniques with keynotes to student audiences in the U.S. and overseas. Do you see where I’m heading with this? Me neither. I’m just rambling in the longest “personal note” in history. End of Bloated Note 2.)

(b) Why use articles? Articles test the criteria stated in my previous blog. Does your article contribute something new or better than what exists? Does it fill a need? The review process will answer these questions. Your work also goes through the rigor of peer review, with detailed feedback from reviewers, maybe rejection, maybe resubmission after revision, maybe submission to another journal, and copy editing before publication. After this beating is over, you usually have an article that is appreciably better than it was originally. Given the length of the journal review process, this could take 2–5 years for a bevy of articles to be ready for book conversion. Keep in mind you’re still scoring field goals with these articles or chapters. The book will be the culmination of all of that work, that is, the touchdown. (Note: This is football season, right? You can expect football analogies and metaphors. Watch out!)

(c) Start hinging your articles: Find that rubric that draws your body of work (articles) together. Think about that hinge as you begin to write each new article. You may also write pieces that have nothing to do with that hinge for different reasons. (Personal Note: This will be shorter that the bloated one above. As you may have guessed from my article topics above, my hinge is: “How to NOT Get Whacked by Your Institution!” Haha. A little hinge humor. The topic is: “Teaching Strategies for the Net Generation.” Among the 30+ books on the Net Generation, is there a book on this topic with the content I have chosen? No. Is there a need? No. Does anybody care? No. I hope I’m kidding. End of Semi-Bloated Note.)

These paragraphs should get you started. The next blog will be “How to convert articles into chapters without violating copyright.” Stick around for my next installment.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Secret Strategies for Writing "Academic" Books: Part I

Writing is tough, even if you're a writer. Since it is part of our job description at most colleges and universities, it is a requirement that some of us find more challenging than others. As a writer, I thought it might be of value to pass on a few strategies that have worked for me. Let me know your thoughts on any of these:

1. Pick the Right Topic: There are 2 criteria I use to decide on topics:

(a) New or unique contribution--Your work provides new information, a new application, new evidence, or something unique that no one has published. For researchers, this is not a problem. For example, among the 30+ books published on the Net Generation, only a few proffer new survey evidence on characteristics, while others apply available evidence to education, the workplace, or other areas.

(b) New spin on existing material—What ever currently exists, you’re convinced you can do it better—meaning, making the material more interesting, more comprehensive and up to date, more appropriate in writing style, focusing on a different niche audience, etc.

In other words, if you don’t have a work that is new or better than others already available, it probably won’t get published by a commercial publisher. Of course, you can self-publish it.

(Personal Note: Over the years, I have observed and been told by faculty and parents that college students are disorganized, waste time, procrastinate, and possess minuscule knowledge of time management. This past spring I thought about a book on that topic. After Googling everything I could find, I concluded there is NO BOOK on the topic for college students. There are 50+ books aimed at managers and employees in business and industry. There are guidelines, chapters in books on study skills, and other scattered resources for students, but no book.
What could I contribute based on the criteria mentioned above? A NEW APPLICATION of evidenced-based practice in b & i, a WRITING STYLE using humor and college student cultural examples and lingo, and a QUICK READ structure for students who don’t want to read. That’s exactly what I did. It was published in Aug.—The Five-Minute Time Manager for College Students [www.coventrypress.com or http://www.amazon.com/]. End of Bloated Note.)

The next blog will cover 2. How to Create Chapters Quickly and Easily. Stay tuned.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Are the NET Geners NET Savvy?

I suspect many of you already have discovered the answer to this blog's question. For those of you who haven't, read on Macduff.
We already know that your students have grown up with the technology; their familiarity with most forms of electronic gadgetry is second nature. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by all of the toys and tools of the digital age (Carlson, 2005). The technology affects everything they do and buy. They expect information to be at their fingertips.
However, (WARNING: Here it comes. Watch out!) they are not necessarily “net savvy” (Lorenzo & Dziuban, 2006). They are exposed to tons of information, but lack an understanding of how to find, evaluate, use, and present that information. They need to be taught information literacy and strong critical thinking skills (Oblinger & Hawkins, 2006; Rockman & Associates, 2004). These deficiencies should be addressed in some way by your institution and in your teaching.
As noted in a previous blog, a digital divide exists based on machine vintage, connectivity, online skills, autonomy and freedom of access, computer support, and interest in using the technology (Hawkins & Oblinger, 2006; Oblinger, 2008a). For those students who are neither tech nor net savvy due to class, nationality, or other factors that limit access, special instruction or training sessions should be provided to give them opportunities to be brought up to the same level of their more proficient peers.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Surveys of the Net Geners: How Do We Know So Much about Them?

Over the past decade as the Net Geners were maturing, graduating high school and college, and entering graduate school or the workforce, they were surveyed and studied by several researchers. In fact, this generation has been scrutinized, interviewed, surveyed, poked, and prodded more than any previous generation. Their characteristics have been reported in more than 30 books and scores of articles. The research evidence upon which many of those publications were based was drawn from the following 10 surveys:
· EDUCAUSE (Fraud, 2000; Oblinger, 2008b; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005b)
· College Students’ Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources Survey (OnlineComputer Library Center [OCLC], 2006)
· Greenberg Millennials Study (Greenberg & Weber, 2008)
· Higher Education Research Institute (UCLA) American Freshman Survey (Pryor et al., 2009)
· National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2002)
· Net Generation Survey (Junco & Mastrodicasa, 2007)
· The Net Generation: A Strategic Investigation (Tapscott, 2009)
· Nielsen NetView Audience Measurement Survey (Cashmore, 2009; Ostrow, 2007)
· Pew Internet and American Life Project (Horrigan, 2006; Horrigan & Rainie, 2005)
· Technological preparedness among entering freshman (Sax, Ceja, & Terenishi, 2001)

There's plenty of reading to do on this generation of students. If you want it boiled down, keep reading my blogs. I am trying to synthesize the pertinent findings from the above sources.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Is the Net Generation Tech Savvy? Part III: The Digital Divide Internationally

The "native-immigrant dichotomy" and Prensky’s descriptions do not generalize outside the U.S. In developing countries, the technology is less prevalent, electricity often scarce, and literacy rates low (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008).
The birth-based definitions and trends as well as the corresponding technological advances are not applicable to most European, Eastern European, and Asian countries. The 1980s and ‘90s were periods of rapidly falling birthrates. Only Russia experienced an “Echo Boom” similar to that in the U.S. The child poverty rates were still quite high in many Western countries during those years.
In addition, the economies and socio-economic structure in those countries limited the access, purchase, and use of the technologies to middle-class and wealthy families. Probably only a few of the characteristics of the Net Geners reported in most survey results would apply to the students from those families (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). The profile is not international or global as far as the survey evidence collected so far tells us.
So what weight can be attached to the characteristics of the Net Geners? There is value in knowing those charactersitics to help us understand them and their culture. However, the limitations must be acknowledged for those students nationally and internationally who do not have access or interest in the technology. Appropriate caveats should also be given for any conclusions drawn.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Is the Net Generation Tech Savvy? Part II: The Digital Divide within the U.S.

As a follow-up to yesterday's blog on Prensky's "digital natives-digital immigrants" categorizations, this blog extends the issue one step further. Jenkins (2007) says that “digital natives” implies all students share a common body of technology knowledge that they have all mastered. In fact, the term masks their different degrees of access to and comfort with the emerging technologies. Also, rather than focusing on the inadequacies of the “digital immigrants,” he argues we should recognize what they bring with them from the old world which is still valuable. Actually, a significant percentage of professionals working in Silicon Valley are “immigrants” who can probably out-compute most of the “natives.” Prensky’s digital and cultural divide between these groups also short circuits thinking about meaningful collaborations across these generations.
Another problem with Prensky’s “digital native” characterization is that it is not typical of all students. There is a digital divide or participation gap within the U.S. For example, Sax, Ceja, and Terenishi (2001) conducted a study 272,821 freshman and found that, after controlling for income, Afro-Americans and Latinos were less lightly to communicate via e-mail than Whites and Asian-Americans. People with lower incomes have lower rates of Internet use and broadband access (Horrigan, 2006; Horrigan & Rainie, 2005). Finally, students with higher incomes are more lightly to use computers to conduct research, create projects, and analyze data than students with lower incomes (Junco & Mastrodicasa, 2007).
Tomorrow, we'll examine the digital divide internationally. See you there.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Is the Net Generation Tech Savvy? Part I: "Digital Natives-Digital Immigrants" Categorizations

Prensky (2001a, 2001b) branded the Net Geners as “digital natives” because “digital” is their native language. They are “native speakers” of the language of computers, video games, and the Internet and have spent their entire lives surrounded by computers, cell phones, and all the gadgetry of the digital age. As you walk across campus, you will notice that these teen and 20-something students have wires coming out of every part of their bodies. Attached to those wires are MP3 players, iPods, Zunes, Zens, iPhones, RAZRs, BlackBerrys, or the latest techy gizmo or thingamajig.
Professors are the ones without the wires. Prensky (2001a) calls us "digital immigrants" because many of us still have one foot in the past and “digital” is our second language, as we continue to learn and sometimes struggle with it on the fly. For example, immigrants may still print out an e-mail, print a document to edit it, or phone someone to see if he or she received their e-mail. Do you know any colleagues like that?
Having grown up with the technology, the Net Geners’ familiarity with most forms of technology is second nature. It affects everything they do and buy. They expect information to be at their fingertips. Their experience with the technology has enabled them to master complex tasks and make decisions rapidly.
The generalizability of these characteristics to all Net Geners and "immigrants" has come under scrutiny. VanSlyke (2003) argues that such a categorization of “natives” versus “immigrants” homogenizes the characteristics of the members within each group. The composition of each group is far more diverse in abilities, attitudes, values, and demographics than Prensky suggests. Not all students fit Prensky’s mold; for example, many do not have PCs at home or have an interest in playing video games. “Not all technology-assisted learning needs to fit the stereotype of the digital native” (p. 6). Further, digital immigrant professors do not need to speak a new “language” in order to be effective. Some are excellent teachers who have adopted learner-centered methods with and without computers. The incorporation of technology in the learning process should be context-specific.
More on this issue in future blogs.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

A Generation of Students "Born with a Chip"

Despite the fact that we know more about our students’ brains and intelligences, how to teach effectively, how students learn, and the technological applications to learning than at anytime previously, about 50% of college students are unmotivated, disinterested, and disengaged from classroom instruction now more than they ever have been. While in class, they may IM or text their buddies while taking notes on their PCs, Web-surfing, scanning an iTunes playlist, and reading The Color Purple (Carlson, 2005).
Where’s the disconnect? Why are they disengaged? Is this generation of students in school right now really that different from previous generations? Today’s undergraduate and graduate students who are part of this generation comprise the majority of students in higher education.
The burgeoning technology alone has had a profound effect on this generation, unlike any previous one. They were “born with a chip.” Are they significantly different? You bet! These students have grown up with Sesame Street, MTV, reality TV, the Internet, PCs/Macs, video games, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Skype, iPods, iPhones, PDAs, and TV/DVD remotes as appendages to their bodies. How über cool is that? They carry an arsenal of electronic devices with them. They are key ingredients in their world. Their use of the technology focuses on social networking, music, videos, TV programs, and games. They live in a world of media overstimulation and absolutely love it. As the lyrics to the Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle hit song from Aladdin tell us, we are entering "A Whole New World."
The technologies provide a window into this world. The students’ world is not better than or inferior to ours; it’s just different. When the students cross the threshold of the classroom door, they enter culture shock. They’re numb with understimulation. How can any professor possibly compete with their world? They can’t. Therein lies the disconnect and it will worsen as there stimulation accelerates with the cultural manifestations of the technology in the future. That’s the problem. How do we address it? Future blogs will address this issue and whether all Net Geners are tech savvy.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

"Everything Is Boring!"

“School is boring. Everything is boring.” Ring a bell? You have probably heard the “b” word from your students and your own kids many times unless you have been living in a snow globe. Who hasn’t? UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute has conducted a national survey of nearly 250,000 college freshman at more than 500 colleges and universities for the past 44 years. One of their findings is that 40+ % of the students report “they are frequently bored in class” (Pryor et al., 2009). Unless the content is on their radar screens, it’s likely to be rated “boring.” That percentage keeps climbing every year in the U.S.
Our students are not the only ones bored. A survey of 211 British university students indicated that 59% found lectures boring in at least half of their classes and 30% find most or all of their lectures boring (Mann & Robinson, 2009). The least boring methods were found in seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions, where students could interact and actively participate. The use of PowerPoint® slides was the most important factor contributing to boredom. This has prompted some educators to “teach naked,” that is, without any technology (Young, 2009). However, this “throw the baby out…” mentality doesn’t seem totally warranted.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

What Should We Name This Generation?

Educators, authors, and researchers have used a variety of terms to name this generation. In fact, it has become a rather contentious issue. The book titles alone reveal this variation, for example, Millennials, Generation Y, Trophy Kids, Net Generation, and Digital Natives, to cite just a few. This has produced considerable confusion among faculty and administrators and much debate over the most appropriate label. Here are nine proposed names or monikers and brief rationales:

1. Millennials: for the high school graduating class of 2000 as they entered the new millennium.
2. Generation Y: derived simply from the succession of one generation to the next—the demographic cohort following Gen Xers.
3. Echo Boomers: the Baby Boom has an echo and it’s even louder than the original; the offspring of the Boomers.
4. Net Generation: linked directly to the (Inter)net and the emerging digital technology of the 1990s with which this generation grew up.
5. Trophy Generation (or Trophy Kids): derived from competitive sports and the practice where no one loses and everyone receives a “trophy” (actually a certificate) for participating.
6. First Digitals: associated with the Digital Revolution during the 1990s; this generation is the first to grow up immersed in everything digital.
7. Digital Aboriginals: the aborigines’ view of the world that all things are connected; this generation’s behaviors are analyzed from an anthropological perspective.
8. Nexters: might be considered a slang version of Next Generation.
9. Digital Natives: “digital” is their native language; they are “native speakers” of the language of computers, video games, and the Internet and have spent their entire lives surrounded by computers, cell phones, and all the gadgetry of the digital age.

After this review of names, the one name that seems the simplest, most descriptive, least controversial, and easily understood, and reflects the profound influence of the Internet on these students’ lives is: Net Generation or Net Geners. I will use that term in future blogs.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Defining the Net Generation by Birth Date

Although the birth dates used to define this generation have varied in different surveys, there seems to be some agreement in the literature—typically between 1982 and 2003 (standard error of ± 2years). Those students are now 6 to 27 years old. That translates educationally into 1st grade through graduate school. However, some authors have lumped them into much narrower (1978–1984) and wider ranges (1976–2003), and everywhere in between.
The birth-date range affects estimates of the size of this generation. Current figures range from 80 to 90 million, about a 3rd of the U.S. population. It is the largest generation in history, even larger than the Baby Boomers. The eldest members have graduated college and are either entering graduate school and/or the workplace in droves. They are "flooding" the workplace, which has presented employers with a whole new set of issues to deal with 4 different generations, working side by side. Hummm. Those issues will be dealt with in a future blog.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC