Today I did my "iPod Generation" presentation for the Capistrano Unified School District adult education teacher in-service. It was a really nice group. We were crammed into a hot stuffy room at the end of a long day, yet there was a lot of great energy there. Their facilities were not exactly state-of-the-art (adult ed tends to be at the end of the priority list in a K-12 district), yet their passion for their work was palpable. I was speaking to several of them beforehand and it was great to hear of their love for teaching. Most of them teach ESL students and many of the classes are focused on basic life skills. None of the people in that room are going to get rich doing what they do, but they do it because they love teaching. What an awesome profession!
Afterwards a high school computer instructor pointed out that while students today adapt to technology in ways that are amazing, often that knowledge is not very deep. They may think they know how to use MS Office, but they are still lining up columns by hitting the space bar. This is a great point and one that I am going to incorporate into future presentations. Just because they often learn technology faster than us old fogies, we can't assume that this generations of students is technically proficient. They still need solid technical education.
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