I have the fortune (although others call it misfortune) to have been born in a generation that is holistically interconnected with their surroundings. Computers and technology came to me just as easily as when I learned to talk. Older generations have had to cope with that development. Aside from having to learn to use them, they have had the challenge to accept these things as completely life altering.
The field in which this generational crash occurs the most is education. I’ve seen it happen in all levels. Ever since cell phones became a hit (say early 2000’s) students can’t help themselves as to take them out and start using those fingers to type away text messages.
It has been a debate, an ongoing one for that matter, of forbidding the use of them. “If I see a cell phone, I will take it away” some teachers say. But for the most part, they have slowly come to accept that cell phones and other gadgets have come to stay.
Still to this day, as a college student, I still see professors ready to snatch the devices and throw them out the window. One day it occurred to me to tell one of them: “If you can’t beat them, join them”. The expression immediately changed in her face as she knew where I was going with that comment. For example, at this level, debates are a common means to educate in class. Why not use those powerful Blackberries to search for immediate information at the very minute of them? You would have an instant, adequate, veracious reply right in the middle of the debate.
Embracing this era’s means of education would make generational gaps shrink and put us all in the same picture. After all, we all want the same thing, the betterment of our education.