I submit to you a simple question: Why Generation Y? We can fiddle with jejune puns — Generations Why, You, or YouTube — but, really, Y just comes after X, and are you really that uninspired that you couldn’t think of a better moniker? I suppose we can consider our options, for example “Millennials,” which Robert Lanham contends originated because we were “renamed after whining too much.”

I’m writing to say that you need to try harder. Or at least settle on a brand before searing us with your misinformed, generalized diatribes. Lanham’s not defending you too well if he writes, “Millennials pose a vital threat to my generation’s cultural legitimacy.” Is it legitimate if we’re the ones making you popular? But don’t mind me too much. We’re making mistakes too, killing good ideas, what have you.

If you take a glance at Wikipedia (yes, you created it, but we made it), the Baby Boomers tossed around names for you too. After the Declaration of Independence, you’re the thirteenth generation to inhabit this thawing planet (SUVs = totally your fault). For us, Alex Pareene insists that “Millennials are the first generation whose every dumb mistake is archived forever on computer networks. We’re the first Googleable generation!”

You got the Cold War and the space race. We got teh internets. You caroused in your neighborhoods. Now, as the new wave of parents, you wonder why we grew up hugging keyboards. danah boyd tells it all: “Teens do not have as much access to physical space…, some teens don’t go out because there’s no where to go… Online is often easier and more accessible.” The internet is our neighborhood. We’re growing up on it. The first generation to do it. As we hangout more online, even our own brats will follow along (and consequentially never understand the nostalgic significance of some then-archaic band names). And don’t call us natives. We escaped the womb, not the firewall. Tim explains that we engage with the popular. Don’t trounce the way we’re growing up, especially when our methods evidently are much cooler than yours.

If you’re suggesting that the Boomers “never understood us,” take a look at yourself. If you think you’ve improved,

Sincerely,
Alex

[11:12am] t55e: sc1olist: just noticed wiki page for the Digital Natives session
[11:12am] t55e: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/berkmanat10/Digital_Natives
[11:12am] daithi: so, where is everyone for these sessions?
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[11:13am] alexleavitt: Digital Natives win.
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[11:16am] daithi: digital natives is about 75% Macs!
[11:16am] sc1olist: Well, we *are* digital natives…
[11:16am] sc1olist: A discerning population, to be sure.
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[11:16am] sc1olist: Digital connoisseurs, if you will. Ha
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[11:30am] daithi: over in natives, Urs Gasser is explaining the context, through a discussion of layers, but after that all the action will be at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/questions/digitalnativeberkman10
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[11:34am] EricaG: I love the mixed IRC & twitter chat from multiple rooms at once. Makes it almost possible to go to everything :D.
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[11:34am] sc1olist: (digital natives) Welcome to academia, everybody.
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[11:34am] sc1olist: what’s the twitter tag tracker for berkman again?
[11:34am] dwitzel_: using the question tool in the Digital Natives session – http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/questions/digitalnativeberkman10
[11:34am] dwitzel_: #berkman
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[11:35am] EricaG: berkmanat10 is the universal tag for everything but twitter.
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[11:35am] EricaG: twitter tag is #berkman since it’s shorter and enables both twemes and hashtags to track
[11:35am] daithi: i’m trying to get as much down as I can at http://www.lexferenda.com/16052008/native/
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[11:44am] jeckman: somebody in the last breakout called me an adult, by which I think he meant I was old
[11:45am] daithi: are you? Apparently the digital native cut-off point is 1980.
[11:45am] jeckman: because I was Born before the internet. Not a native by a decade, fwiw
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[11:45am] jeckman: though I have been on the net since 1989
[11:46am] dwitzel_: jbeckman, i think you can still get a digital green card
[11:46am] jeckman: <- (digital immigrant)
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[11:46am] dwitzel_: illegal immigrant?
[11:47am] EricaG: I’m in the cusp. Most people won’t claim me in GenX, but I’m a coupe years older than the official “digital native.” [1978]
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[11:51am] fonchik: naturalized digital citizens?
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[11:52am] daithi: John Palfrey wonders whether classrooms should be wired/online during class. What do ye think?
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[11:53am] jeckman: @jessamyn Which means technically I was born before the internet (1970)
[11:54am] jeckman: And yes, classrooms should be wired during class
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[11:54am] sc1olist: (digital natives) So far, no mention of it being useful in class to find context to what’s happening/discussed. Or that people take notes on laptops.
[11:55am] daithi: or IRC it
[11:55am] saraw1: exactly. i don’t know why professors are so threatened by it.
[11:55am] ltsui: connectivity is great for looking up things in wikipedia during class
[11:55am] saraw1: besides, what constitutes participation? Can you participate without talking? I think yes
[11:55am] sc1olist: @ltsui Exactly. ESSENTIAL in history, particularly at the graduate level.
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[11:56am] EricaG: jassamyn, it’s so time for revolt. these aren’t supposed to be lectures.
[11:56am] jessamyn: speaking of IRCing it, does anyone have a link for THIS Scott MCloud (do I have that right?)? I keep finding the cartoonist
[11:56am] dwitzel_: shouldn’t your twitter feed count for “participation”
[11:56am] saraw1: i was in school before we had any computers in the classroom. i knew then how to feign participation/interest
[11:56am] saraw1: dwetzel-I should say so!!!!
[11:57am] jessamyn: I am trapped by my own politeness
[11:57am] fonchik: I came to college with an electric typewriter
[11:57am] saraw1: the computer has nothing to do with whether you are participating or not, nor BTW does speaking in class
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[11:58am] sc1olist: @saraw1: I disagree on the latter, but the former is quite true. In fact, it often helps give people the confidence to talk.
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[11:58am] alexleavitt: I don’t see why IRC shouldn’t be implemented in classroom, or at least seminar, discussion
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[11:59am] saraw1: why does speaking in class count as participation while being silently involved does not? it’s discrimination against introverts
[11:59am] alexleavitt: http://alexleavitt.com/2008/05/16/berkman10-irc-and-the-dialogue-of-education/
[11:59am] saraw1: besides, note that there is such a thing as saying something just to say it. e.g. content-free participation
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[12:00pm] alexleavitt: most of my English teachers have counted class participation simply through attendance; class participation grades just seem to be part of the old system that needs to change
[12:00pm] daithi: @sara: it can raise interesting gender/class/social/ethnic/disability issues too, i.e. multiple options for participation can be an anti-exclusion device
[12:00pm] sc1olist: @saraw1: It’s not that it doesn’t, it’s that it’s an important part of the training that school provides–the confidence to vocalize opinions and defend them. THere’s an argument to be made for it, that’s all. Don’t completely disagree with you.
[12:00pm] saraw1: absolutely.
[12:01pm] sc1olist: @saraw1: BTW, it’s discriminatory to teach math to people who are inherently worse at quantitative methodlogy?
[12:01pm] EricaG: it’s annoying that participation measurement favors people who speak before they think over people who save their thoughts & produce analysis later, or wait to speak til they have something new or useful to say
[12:01pm] jessamyn: I have a general feeling that we measure the wrong things, in libraries this happens, no suprise in education too
[12:01pm] sc1olist: @EricaG: Yes and no. I think we don’t give professors enough credit for suggesting participation is simply quantity.
[12:01pm] saraw1: No, it is that the definition of what constitutes participation is too narrow and variable
[12:01pm] ltsui: ericag: isn’t that why we also have response papers, final papers, exams etc? i can imagine blogging (live or not) also being part of participation.
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[12:02pm] saraw1: it’s not objective—and i don’t know that there is any correlation between someone’s arbitrary definition of participation and learning–which is, after all, the point of education
[12:02pm] EricaG: @sc1olist I remember being in classes where the number of times you spoke up was part of your participation grade, or where you could only actually get a chance to speak if you raised your hand ridiculously early
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[12:02pm] alexleavitt: so, are we going to define participation by who writes in a collaborative Google doc?
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[12:03pm] sc1olist: @EricaG: Yeah, that’s insane. And not productive for learning.
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[12:04pm] saraw1: no, until it can be shown to be objectively assessed in a fair, consistent way—and until it can be shown to have any correlation w/educational outcomes, it is not worth grading
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[12:04pm] sc1olist: @saraw1: And the same goes for paper grading? Becuase that can’t be done in a fully objective way.
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[12:05pm] ltsui: saraw1: i do think learning to speak in public (incl classroom) should be part of an education
[12:05pm] sc1olist: @saraw1: Do you really believe that one’s ability to defend their ideas verbally is not correlated to educational outcome, or, in another word, IS itself an outcome (since it’s so directly useful in life almost regardless of the field?)
[12:06pm] alexleavitt: @Itsui: I entirely disagree. Public speaking should be a requirement in every educational institution.
[12:06pm] sc1olist: @alex: agreed.
[12:06pm] alexleavitt: @myself: don’t add in “not”s to people’s comments
[12:06pm] fonchik: Could someone in the Digital Natives session explain this discussion (someone just tweeted it) “teaching with twitter rocks”
[12:06pm] saraw1: you are reading my objection to participation grades way, way too broadly and btw discrediting the point i am trying to make by way of hyperbole
[12:07pm] ltsui: @alexleavitt: i was saying learning to speak publicly is necessary. i dont think we are disagreeing
[12:07pm] alexleavitt: @fonchik: We’re talking about using laptops in classrooms.
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[12:07pm] EricaG: i agree people need to learn how to defend their ideas and speak confidently and extemporaneously. but that can be done by having people make presnetations and take questions, having debates, etc. rather than trying to pretend you’re measuring it quantitatively
[12:07pm] daithi: Someone said that they were encouraging students to use twitter in class, and JohnPalfrey asked who else did, and there was some murmurs
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[12:07pm] alexleavitt: @Itsui. Re: alexleavitt: @myself
[12:07pm] saraw1: learning to speak in public and learning per se are two different things
[12:07pm] fonchik: @daithi thanks!
[12:08pm] sc1olist: @saraw: basically, the question is if we’re teaching knowledge in some existential sense, which I think is what you’re getting at with “learning” (correct me if I’m wrong) or useful skills that could be tought (learned) in school.
[12:08pm] alexleavitt: The interesting thing about using twitter during some type of lecture is that with the limitation of input, the results usually end up highlighting important, favorite, or interesting quotations (just look at the Berkman twitter feed)
[12:10pm] alexleavitt: BTW, for anyone inside or outside the Digital Natives discussion, this YouTube video is a must watch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o (A Vision of Students Today, Michael Wesch, Kentucky State University)
[12:10pm] saraw1: i want to go back to daithi’s comments about gender/race/native language/cultural differences re-comfort w/public speaking.
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[12:10pm] daithi: si?
[12:11pm] sc1olist: @digitalnatives talk: How is having one’s head buried in a laptop different from in a notebook? Aren’t the people who have their heads buried in laptops simple the close notetakers of the present? Same typology.
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[12:11pm] fonchik: @ericag is this IRC getting archived somewhere somehow?
[12:11pm] saraw1: with which i completely agree. btw, I have no trouble speaking up when i have something to say.
[12:11pm] EricaG: No
[12:11pm] alexleavitt: This discussion will be copypasta-ed to my blog.
[12:11pm] • MooingLemur can provide a log.
[12:11pm] EricaG: cool
[12:11pm] daithi: i’ll give a bit more context on what i meant, look for example about the debate on dyslexia and separating out core learning outcomes (and tapering assessment to the outcomes)
[12:12pm] daithi: to avoid assessing something that’s not part of the outcomes
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[12:12pm] saraw1: but I do have a child who is brilliant but very shy. she gets 100%’s on most of her exams, knows the material cold, but gets b’s and c’s for not speaking up enough
[12:12pm] daithi: for class participation, the pedagogical question is what are you trying to communicate and measure
[12:12pm] alexleavitt: webuse.org/papers
[12:13pm] saraw1: exactly (daithi)
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[12:14pm] saraw1: but, because she is shy, she gets b’s and c’s for not speaking enough. oh, btw, i would love to see a study measuring how often teachers called on kids with different demographic characteristics
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[12:15pm] dwitzel_: i have save a sizeable chunk of the IRC. can share somewhere
[12:15pm] sc1olist: me2
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[12:18pm] daithi: Palfrey (DigitalNatives) recommends the MacArthur/MIT Press series on digital media and learning
[12:19pm] daithi: the link is http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/browse/browse.asp?btype=6&serid=170, on screen in the classroom
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[12:23pm] dwitzel_: who is talking?
[12:23pm] dwitzel_: what university?
[12:24pm] dwitzel_: thx @alex
[12:24pm] dwitzel_: sorry — who is talking in digital natives breakout
[12:25pm] daithi: http://www.fir.unisg.ch/org/fir/web.nsf/c2d5250e0954edd3c12568e40027f306/fe9db20511dda0edc1256ae1002c64ff!OpenDocument
[12:25pm] daithi: Herbert Burkert (also http://www.herbert-burkert.net)

Or, in this room, is the demographic of the adult audience limited? Is it a niche in the totality of adult digital users? A mix of industry guests and academic scholars and researchers, is the demographic more educated than the average digital adult?

Then I must ask: Should we be defining the future of the Internet by these adults’ terms?

If you look at my spotlight on Michael Wesch, re/view the three videos. He argues that humanity has defined computing and the Internet in archaic terms, but also by archaic methods. I’m not saying that adults aren’t everpresent online, but they certainly are not omnipresent. Neither are youth. I don’t want to approach the digital divide in this article, though. I do, however, want to say this:

I wish that more youth had registered for Berkman@10. There certainly exists a dichotomy between the adult and adolescent perspectives toward the Internet and contemporary technology. My generation possesses different values and approach digital ethics differently. I do not want to suggest that we are more right than adults. But if we, Berkman@10, are going to argue about the future of the Internet, then we need to hear more from the “younger” generation present in the audience.

There is a strong polarity between Berkman@10 and ROFLCon, and not simply a polarity of content. I admire ROFLCon because it encouraged an amalgamation of digital inhabitants (contributors and critics) and digital creators (the “industry”). The demographic of the “inhabitants” consisted mainly of adolescents. I believe that, because so many youth attended ROFLCon, the audience was much more involved and familiar with the practicality of the technology, rather than the theories and assumptions present in an approach to the technology. A good example is the Question Tool used by both conferences (the ROFLCon tool is down at the publication of this article), where the audience members can submit questions and then vote up or down “good” questions, later to be viewed and answered by the speaker(s). The implementation at ROFLCon simply worked, while at Berkman@10 the tool hasn’t reached its full potential, nor do I think it will. My guess is that the membership of ROFLCon simply was more interested in what everyone had to say, while here we just want to hear from the infamous panelists. The presence of technology at Berkman@10 trounces that at ROFLCon, however, and I find that a bit strange. More laptops… but that may be because of the more academic nature of this conference, and it’s definitely easier to transcribe notes on a keyboard.

Either way, I am almost twenty one years old. I am very involved in technology. I grew up on a Macintosh. There is a septuagenarian sitting across the aisle. Is he that much more involved? Will I be less involved digitally in 2025 than the contemporary youth at that period? Or will Web 3.0, or whatever we’re in for, enable a highly digital future? And will I be heralding in that age, or will it still be the adults of today?

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g&hl=en]
The Machine is Us/ing Us

I’m especially drawn to the method he employs (not the medium of YouTube, but the constant motion of editing) because it involves a lot of my recent thoughts on text (both as a form and as a medium) that have personally materialized in my Literary Criticism class at the end of the spring semester. I particularly like his explanation of XML and how the language initially emphasizes content over form, but then, in its implementation, the content becomes the form to produce the content.

In a second video, he discusses how the way we have organized information digitally — on computers and through the Internet — may need to be changed if we want to keep improving the technology and evolving through it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM&hl=en]
Information R/evolution

One more video of note:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o&hl=en]
A Vision of Students Today

This is especially important to watch if you’re a student at any university or college in the United States, or will soon enter one. Just as with digital information, Wesch argues that the system and techniques of the contemporary university need reorganization. The video pinpoints a good number of problems that students face everyday in the classroom and suggest how these problems suppress a positive evolution in higher education (ie. one of the last examples is simply the chalkboard). I also admire how the video identifies prominent aspects of the emerging generation (called digital natives, Generation Y, and the Millennials) and how they interact with the current collegiate structure.

Also, check out Michael Wesch’s blog on digital ethnography. I really wish I could study under him for a bit, since I feel it necessary to draw from cultural anthropology when examining the Internet, fan cultures, etc., but it’s Kentuuucky. And I like the East Coast.