What About My Generation?

During our September 4 class, I have to admit that I bounced back in fourth in my mind between total excitement about trying these tools in my own classroom, and verging on frustration with my own ability to use the tools while I was a student in the classroom. Listening to lecture while on my laptop: taking notes, clicking from site to site, and referencing ilearn was a stretch for me. During my last graduate school experience (over 8 years ago), while about 50% of the students clicked away on their laptops, I rarely brought a laptop to class, much preferring to take nicely outlined notes, or draw a mind map while listening to the lecture. At that time there wasn't even an option to link up to the wireless Internet. Using Web 2.0 tools allow us to multi-task, and to quickly link to new topics of interest. For me this seems such a great way to do individual learning, but for me the stretch is taking this to the classroom. My current work project is developing a class on managing generations in the workplace. I can't help but think about how this newer style of classroom learning will work for people of varying generational biases and learning style preferences. I am thinking about how to make this bridge for myself, and for the people that I might be training in the future.