 My name is Ross White. I'm the Dean of Distance Education here at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. I'm also an instructor in our Humanities Department and today's session is going to be on Personalizing learning for the gamer generation which should immediately appeal to all the geeks who are here And in fact, maybe you have self-selected and we're all geeks here, which would be okay by me I will say I'm not an expert by any means on Generational differences, but I think we're we're gonna be well served by spending a little time in Looking at some generational Effect us around school. I am getting a little feedback So if you would please make sure that your microphone is muted that would be Exceptionally good for the rest of the session and we'll stop and remind folks of that every so often So the history behind this presentation is that Had the chance to start thinking about this Well as a gamer I I come to education as somebody who's deeply deeply interested in games and game-based learning and have started spending some time thinking about Why is it that as we get into schools? We have kids who are ready for certain challenges and sometimes the adults expectations don't match And where are those mismatches and how can we how can we think about those mismatches in terms that are useful for schools? And so that's really where Today's presentation came from I'm gonna try to talk for about 35 to 40 minutes and then open things up for some Q&A However, if you have got some questions or comments Please feel free to raise your hand at any point during the presentation or you can text your questions In through our chat window on the side And the able Carol Stern is here. She's gonna be helping me to moderate so that while I'm staring at the camera and looking really engaging for you guys She's gonna be making sure that I don't miss any questions that I take them all at the right time So I want to want to start with just sort of an overview of what some of the generations are That we're gonna encounter in our schools And I really do have to sort of set one caveat for today's presentation And that is there are gonna be some gross Gross generalizations. All right, so as we kind of talk about some of the characteristics of these generations You might say well, I was born in 1964 and I don't fit that at all. I totally fit into Gen X Well, the beginnings and endings of these generations are certainly very slippery And I think if you ask any social scientists who spends any any Energy in this area, they'll give you different dates to start and end They'll also give you some different generational characteristics But some of the some of the generalizations that I am going to make today Are really based around some of the research that I've done and at the end of the session I would be happy to share a reading list for those of you who are interested as well as some other resources That may be useful that'll come up today So let's talk a little bit about what are those generations that we find in our workplace in our schools in our central offices in our school boards and What are some of their attitudes? So the first one I want to talk about The silent generation. It's also known as the greatest generation This is this generation born roughly between 1922 and 1945 as America has transitioned into the industrial age and starting to transition into the post-industrial age This is a generation that has grown up just after World War one Some of them born in World War two and we see What we would now consider to be very traditional values in this generation in fact Some social scientists now refer to this generation as the traditional So what are some of the values that we see from that generation? Well the first hard work This is a generation that placed great value on putting your head down getting the job done and then moving on to the next job, so hard work is one of the core values of this silent generation and Obviously that has some real effects on the workplace In so far as they're going to be very focused on making sure that they're productive at every moment at work Another value that we see very widely in this generation is a respect for authority The silent generation is one in which there was still a tremendous amount of respect for Institutions the American government Was sacrosanct for this group They had a strong sense of hierarchy in the workplace and A real sense that they should defer to anyone who had a higher status in the workplace So this idea that the company president must have Must have some characteristics that make him or her often him a Valuable member of the company and therefore we should defer to that intellect to that thinking That's very prevalent in the silent generation This is a generation that greatly valued sacrifice for the family for the company for the school And for our country and we saw this enacted in both World War one and World War two that the silent generation Placed a great deal of emphasis on putting the needs of the group ahead of the needs of the individual They this is a generation that sacrificed for their children And so we see the silent generation very focused on making sure that life is going to be better For their children for the grandchildren and for their great-grandchildren They were also very focused on making sure that life would be better for Americans in future generations the final sort of general characteristic I want to give you about the silent generation is They didn't have a great need for feedback in the workplace. It didn't have a need for feedback in their own lives In many cases quiet was good. No news is good news So I said earlier. This was a generation that wanted to put their heads down and get the job done And they they were able to measure success by was the job done Well, they didn't necessarily want or need anybody to come in and tell them about that So we're gonna see how that's very different from some of the generations that follow So I'm gonna take a moment and just kind of stop and and give you an opportunity to let us know in the chat window If you have some other observations about this generation or any questions so far, right? It doesn't look like anything's popped up just yet From Paula who said to everyone these are all spot-on in my opinion All right. Thank you Paula and again remember they are generate Generalizations about the generation so we're certainly going to see people who will behave against these expectations, but these are These are stereotypes in some ways, but they're useful heuristics. Let's talk a little bit about the baby boomer generation Born starting right after World War two Some social scientists will say that they were born towards the tail end of World War two and ending in the early 60s the baby boomers were the products of Households where sacrifice was a key value and so this was Generation that felt in some ways when they were growing up that they should be sacrificed for They focused then very much on personal fulfillment This was a generation that felt like hey, you know after after all these sacrifices have been made Why not why not enjoy it just a little bit and yet that value of hard work that their parents had had Was very much passed on to the baby boomers this is the first generation where we start to see workaholism and a generation that spends more time at the office than with family a Lack of work-life balance is really first noticed here in the baby boomer generation That's not to say that we don't have a we don't have a cultural history in America of People working all the time, but this was a group for whom they may have had the means to not work all the time But those values of hard work kept them consistently pursuing Achievement in the workplace This for this group The way that they preferred to get feedback was in the form of compensation This was not a generation that necessarily wanted to be appreciated in verbal terms They wanted to see the money that was going to go along With the hard work that they'd done and they believed that they ought to move through the the corporate Hierarchies and the social hierarchies that their parents had observed so rigidly So show me the money show me the title make sure that rather than just thanking me you remunerate me for all that hard work and that again that feeds that sort of Imbalance in the work life In the work life setup so you can see how in some ways the baby boomers were We're sort of a logical response to the silent generation Or the greatest generation and in much the same way Gen X follows along Follows along a certain trajectory so starting in the mid 60s ending in the mid 80s Gen X Was the first generation that really noticed their parents absence if the baby boomers were workaholics Gen X was the first generation of latch-key kids. They spent a lot of time alone They spent a lot of time caring for themselves When they were young so they became very self-reliant at a very young age and we see in Gen X We see a strong spirit of entrepreneurship even in In folks who did not take Entrepreneurial jobs, but took more traditional jobs. They bring a more entrepreneurial work style into the work setting Gen X tended to want structure and direction and I think again that this is has something to do with With not only becoming latch-key kids and self-reliant at a very early age, but still looking for the parental influence but also Gen X is still sort of looking at the the hierarchy that was so rigidly observed by the silent generation and that the baby boomers Aspired to move through Through their careers Gen X also looks at that and now we're starting to see that Hierarchy weakened just a little bit In Gen X, but there is still a desire for direction Now when we think about The workplace and we think about people who move into leadership positions these three generations tend to work fairly well together So the silent generation values hard work They respect authority the baby boomers want to move into those leadership positions But they're willing to do so in very traditional ways and they're willing to do so also with hard work Gen X comes in they want structure and direction and when they're the youngest generation in the workforce This works out extremely well these three generations work very much in harmony together and Gen X is the first generation that really in the workplace starts looking For feedback they really want to check in they want to know how they're doing and they want people to notice how they're doing and Those those ways of noticing with Gen X aren't necessarily tied to promotions or to money Occasionally they want to be thanked for a job. Well done So I'm gonna take a moment break there see if see if these observations are making sense Carol's gonna take a look in the chat window and so let us know if you have observations just yet before we move on and Look at a generation. That's a little bit different Take a moment if you've got it type any observations No need to do so if you don't have anything at this time if you're just happy listening We're in good shape there, too Well, I'm gonna move on. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the chat window But let's talk a little bit about the Millennials There's one more thing we have to know about Gen X because it's gonna it's gonna make life a little bit different for the Millennials Gen X our generation of latchkey kids our generation that was looking for a little bit of structure and direction as They become parents. They start to think I want to provide that Presence I want to provide that structure. I want to provide that direction and so That's really where we see the birth of the helicopter parents So the latchkey kids grew up to be those helicopter parents and gave rise to the Millennials Born roughly in the mid 80s through the beginning of the century and these are the kids who are now in our schools These are the kids who are now working their way into our workforce some of the older ones And these are the first kids who grew up with video games and that's gonna be important in just a minute But let's talk a little bit about some of their attitudes some of their assumptions first off This was a generation that grew up. It's the first generation to grow up with cable TV It's the first generation to grow up With the commodity internet though not everybody in this generation has it to start out So this is a generation that's very comfortable with multi-tasking and as a result They're always looking for what's next. They want the next big challenge. They want the next big thing they become a very tenacious group especially when When older generations compare themselves to the Millennials simply because they're handling a much higher volume of Information very seamlessly since they've grown up with it. So they seem to be very tenacious And in some ways as they enter the workplace, they can sometimes feel aggressive To us because they are so hungry for the next challenge and because they've had so much structure They're they're looking to participate. So they're a highly Participative generation this generation more than any before it believes that an individual can change the world and because they've grown up with Reality television because they've grown up with the internet They have a sense that an individual can have a worldwide reach They're they're very sort of fluid with this idea of going on YouTube and broadcasting out and Comfortable with being seen in many ways Now for this group because those helicopter parents were always around but because those helicopter parents We're also engaging their kids as friends as they move into the workplace This is a generation that feels like authority is Maybe ever present in their lives But authority and friendship are not so different and you can see how that's going to cause some generational differences with our generations that greatly respected hierarchy because the Millennials will tend to act and participate like Authority is Authority figures are equal to them. They don't see those rigid hierarchies Quite so well and because they're highly participative They also tend to want meaningful feedback on a regular basis and folks They do not want to wait for it now. You've probably dealt with students or young professionals who? Show up and they say hey, why haven't you responded to me and you kind of say well, you know What when did you when were you in contact and this person says I sent you an email 20 minutes ago? And you think oh my gosh, that's a that's a crazy expectation But in fact that kind of instantaneous feedback is something that Millennials crave and they've had a whole lot of it We can talk a little bit more later about why they've had so much of it throughout their professional careers This is also a generation that greatly wants to collaborate and work with other creative people and Because they have access to the commodity internet at such an early age They've been finding peer groups They're very different from the peer groups of the silent generation the baby boomers and Gen X whose peer groups were Mostly geographic the Millennials are forming peer groups in terms of affinity because they have so much more information Available to them. All right, so I'm gonna stop there for just a moment See if we've got any observations in our chat window and folks feel free to chat these in as we go You don't have to wait for us to stop But just want to make sure that you guys are getting What you hope for out of this presentation All right, and while we're waiting for that to happen. I'm gonna move on to our next slide so our Millennials Are going to be sort of the focus of what I want to spend the rest of our time today talking about and Specifically I want to think about how our Millennials consume content because our digital natives have very different attitudes and Habits about information about the content that we find in schools And those habits and attitudes certainly start to come into play as they enter the workforce as young teachers And young administrators even This is a group that has less of a need for a personal knowledge base And you guys have all seen this happen because when you ask a question the first thing that our Millennials do They think I'll just look that up on Wikipedia the group knows it therefore. I don't need to know it And you know this this is an attitude that starts You know we start to get into this even with Gen X when Gen X has has really good calculator tools There's there's a great outcry. Well, how will they learn math if they have a calculator and Gen X is the generation that starts to answer Well, if we have a calculator, why do we need to learn math in the same way that we always have? So think about that principle apply to almost every facet of information And now you've got a sense of how this generation is going to be Consuming content and how they're going to view the need for their personal knowledge base They actually are going to feel more like their needs are Are identifying problems retrieving information out of large sets of data and then solving problems with it So this is a generation that is starting to see the need for Aggregating all of these different knowledge bases and being able to search effectively within them and make connections So that critical thinking that we're so desperate to teach in schools. This is part of why Because the sort of classical Model of whoever has the most knowledge is the most powerful. Well, the internet has started to equalize that So I have a comment that nail Hyatt gave us which was that when we were talking about instant feedback that other Generations are beginning to to want instant feedback Concerning that have you read my email kind of comment and so that the generations learn from one each one another Absolutely, and that is actually sort of the joy of having a multi-generational workplace even when we encounter some of the frictions when we're able to have conversations and recognize some of these differences in work style and generational attitudes we're often able to pick and choose and I think we currently are working at a really exciting time where we're able to To do more of that picking and choosing just by having access to so much more information. So now that's a great point I appreciate that So one other one other thing I want to point out in in terms of how Millennials are consuming content is that Millennials have a need not only to understand The world around them the peer culture they have a need to nourish it and to find ways to influence it and we actually see this come into play with Content Millennials have a need not just to receive content But to interact with it to embellish it and to influence content. So again very participatory And when we think about how this applies to our students Students are greatly affected by what they perceive as the normal behavior of their peers in the social environment So I think we're seeing this kind of participative behavior Accelerate because everyone has ways to see how that participation is happening and clearly that participation Is something that's valued across a number of institutions. We're seeing a lot of movement towards social justice and social Working on social and progressive causes among young people And they're greatly rewarded for that through the sort of traditional academic processes. So So kids are you know, they start with what's going to look good on my college applications and end up with feeling very empowered to change the world by participating in the generation of information What's interesting about this generation is that the ways just that they consume content are often Performative so these kids have got pervasive networks. They've got Facebook. They've got Twitter And yes, they're they're posting to those things but think about Facebook With certain plug-ins just reading an article on the on the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post can trigger activity in the timeline So these kids just by the act of looking at something or clicking a button that says that they like it are showing off their their consumption habits and in some ways they're performing to that norm that they feel is Expected by their peers because they're so sensitive to those peer networks Okay, that may be a place of unease for some of the previous generations But if we think about it We know that the reason Facebook wants that to happen is that it's data that they can mine And they can make money off of it in the educational environment Kids are creating an enormous amount of data either individual data or aggregate data when we start to put Put some of their viewing trends their consumption trends together and we can use that too So it's so we have to start looking for ways that we can do that as as we think about How kids consume though we have to think about what are their incentives for consuming information and a few Considerations have got to come into play first off. This is a generation that has never dealt with information scarcity When I was a little bit younger if I didn't know the answer to something My mother was going to march me up to the library and say get into those encyclopedias and look it up Well now if you don't know the answer to something Get out your smartphone and you'll have it in 12 seconds, you know my willingness to march up to the library Sometimes it was great enough to go get that that information I wanted to know so badly that I would make the march, but a lot of times it was just like I don't need to know that bad But this this group this generation never had any of that sense that they couldn't just go get the answers and That information for them has always been free So their notions of intellectual property seem a little bit different from ours And I know I know so many of you in the room today that I know that we've had a million Conversations about how do we teach copyright in educational settings where fair use is such a squishy kind of thing and Now we're in a situation where We feel like oh, this must be plagiarism Whereas this generation says no this kind of aggregation among many different sources. This is how life is going to look So this isn't really plagiarism So we've got some real mismatches in generational perceptions based on the fact that this group has never had any information scarcity And most information for them has been free and I will note that That all the images that you are seeing in today's presentation are shared through creative commons So we're starting to see Excuse me licensing structures. We're starting to see Whole websites and organizations dedicated to making sure that information can be free when we think about this generation's approach to information We actually start to think that supply and demand that they're very basic have been Totally different for this generation Then they have previous generations Every fruit is now in season every product is now available on the Walmart or the Target shelves because we have globalized our economy So dramatically this group Has viewed supply and demand very differently this generation and that doesn't mean that this generation hasn't dealt with poverty They absolutely have but there have been seemingly unlimited product choices almost from birth A set of choices that can be almost overwhelming Large-scale economic issues have had a huge impact on this generation but our Millennials have dealt with personal and family issues around scarcity Even at a time when the culture around them continued to consume at a at a rapid and a massive pace So particularly in the most recent recession we've got students for whom This kind of difficulty is very much at home But it's not reflected in popular culture and with all the information available to them They may feel like gosh, we're the only one struggling right now in a world of plenty There's been a decrease in faith In institutions and the underlying systems around that when students can't quite make the The linkages between their their own issues of their personal issues of scarcity and these societal issues in which It doesn't doesn't feel to them like people are dealing with scarcity, especially at a time when information is so rich but one of the results that That has has occurred is that these students have a strong value in self-determination They don't always have the life experience to wield that that sense of self-determination, but they are they're extremely motivated In that sense, so I want to stop there because in just a minute I want to talk about how this applies to our schools and classrooms But I just want to take a moment and see if we've got any other Thoughts or opinions about some of these generalizations about the millennial generous generation So take a moment add those thoughts and generalizations to our chat window if you've got them I'm gonna take a sip of my Pepsi here. All right quiet group today quiet group today All right, let's talk a little bit about how some of what what we're talking about actually pertains to schools When we think about the fact that we have this generation that feels empowered feels deterministic and Paula's got a comment That she she's a baby boomer and struggles with interest My students and children have been sharing so much detail about themselves. Oh, that is a great point because We come from a generation that was not performative in the sense that this generation is This is a generation again. That's grown up with reality television They've grown up with YouTube and they've grown up the scent with the sense that anybody can be a star just put your talent on display American idols taught us that and And Certainly we've got shy kids in this generation But I think that that's a generational attitude that that many of us don't share and that's a little bit frightening to us But it's not going to go away. And so we kind of have to think about well gosh What is what are the implications for how these kids are going to work in our classrooms? and I appreciate actually that that you're willing to say that you're that you do struggle with that because Grappling with that struggle. I think is one of the one of the key things that's going to keep us moving forward Across generations over the next five to ten years in education. So I'm really glad that you were willing to share that so So yeah, this generation that that is performative this generation that that wants some control over their learning processes, how do we From generations where we we haven't necessarily felt good about seeding that control How do we go about doing that? Well, the first thing we need to do is we need to recognize that kids control their news sources Facebook has led to a real content channel mentality and kids have really started to sort of Build networks in which they're able to sort of control the shape of their news They get their news from trusted sources their friends their community members Because the volume of information is so high and we can put this into place for ourselves you guys have probably heard the term PLN or personal learning network and Educators are increasingly finding ways to shape their own news feeds by finding trusted reliable professionals that they want to hear from that share some of their same values and And can be of use to them as they sort of re-imagine the school environment So the fact that you're here today Probably suggests that you're part of a personal learning network or that your personal learning network Was able to point you to an experience like this which definitely isn't for everybody Another way that that we see control is we we can see control of content to students by allowing them to build their Own curricula and this is this is tough in the in the wake of Common Core being adopted in our state We need to start thinking about how do we give students some sense of ownership? over a core set of standards and Common Core what it really provides for us is a Structural framework for critical thinking but we have a lot of options on what the day-to-days are going to look like in our classrooms And I'm thinking specifically when we start to think about how do we let students build their own curriculum We've got to consider that many students won't Intuitively know how that's done So you're going to hear a lot of presentations in the coming years of giving students control over the content But we have to be aware that that process is always going to require us to set up good choice architecture And one book that I would suggest today is a book called nudge by Sunstein and Thaler And again, I'll send out a short reading list if folks want it this this book talks about Making sure that we if we give kids a lot of options that the default option is the most desirable Behavior so if I were to say All right students. I'm going to let you choose how this activity works I might give a platter of options But the first one that I might give is going to be one that that I want Most students attention drawn to and I'm going to hope that they're gonna if they don't have their own path that they're excited about They're probably going to go for the default One other piece of information that I'm that might be useful that I'd be happy to send out if people wanted is I'm trying to put this into action right now I have built a syllabus for a poetry writing course that I'm teaching here at the school of science and math And I'm also teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Wherein students pick their own reading list and they're given a set of behaviors a set of a Set of objectives and they get to choose which ones they want. I'll talk a little bit more about that later But we're starting to see this idea of game-based classrooms where students choose their own paths through And that's really borrowing from video games in a lot of ways We also we also need to think about if we are going to allow students to identify Their own curriculum if we're going to allow them to identify some of their own content Then we're starting to move to a school setting where everyone has to teach reading Everyone has to teach media literacy and everyone Regardless of your subject matter has to start start thinking about relevant and real-world challenges a great example of this is The new curriculum that's rolling out from NCVPS around forensics integrated math And a few other courses in which the courses are structured around the grand challenges in engineering giving kids big questions and Letting them solve things that are relevant in their own community or in the world around them So really engaging that sense that they can change the world right there in our classrooms So that's big when we think about how we give them control of content We've also got to give them control of some assessments And I'm sure you're thinking what on earth is this graphic doing in a presentation about our schools I'm not comfortable with that But the first instance does anybody recognize what this what this graphic is from take a moment Tell me where you think this is from In the chat window why on earth would I be showing this when I talk about seeding control of assessments to our students? So Paula says it's from a video game and you are correct Paul Does anybody have Chris says black ops or maybe call of duty not quite But you're thinking close to this close to the right lines anybody know which game this is from Those were great guesses by the way Chris and you've you've outed yourself as a as a gamer as well If you know the difference between Call of Duty and black ops So this is from a game called America's army And this is a game that's free to play. It's been set up by the US Army. It was developed by a studio here in Kerry and This video game allows young people to go on simulated army missions and get immediate and Adaptive feedback about how they're doing it also allows the army to showcase What's interesting about being the army and it's a huge recruiting tool for them But what's interesting about this game is it's one of the first where based on the individual movements of a player the game adjusts its difficulty level so Carol Chris Roxy and I could all be playing and we could all be experiencing the game very differently because the artificial intelligence Underpinning the game might adjust itself to be a little bit slower for me because I'm maybe not as adept right when I jump in So these kinds of Adaptive feedback networks, which we see a lot in video games and we're starting to see more In immersive Experiences these are going to make their way into our classroom. Whether it's adapting to what we're doing When we speak or what we're doing with our hands or if it's just biometric sensors that watch where our eyes are moving and Help adjust the reading instruction based on where our eyes are going so Seeding control over the assessments to our students actually requires building very smart systems that adapt to our students Okay so this notion that That feedback could be flexible and it could be adaptive This this is taken over the game world And so how many of you guys? This is this is an image that was created by a college student I think this one's pretty great. How many of you guys recognize the symbol at the bottom of this image? Anybody know what this is from the cup thing the cup thing? What is that and it's not actually just the cup, but it's also The little logo that says achievement unlocked Alright, so it looks like we don't have a lot of hardcore geeks in here. Oh, we've got one I wondered if it was you Chris this is from the Microsoft has a video game system called the Xbox and as students or as players play through games in Xbox They can a lot that they can unlock certain achievements which indicate that they have Met a certain level of mastery Sometimes it's completing a difficult level sometimes. It's doing an insane and repetitive behavior over and over Sometimes it's getting into the secret room But players are able to see what other players in their friend network have done So if Chris and I both have the same game I could see which achievements Chris has gotten in that game because he's got A little badge that goes along with it and he could see what I've done and these tend to be very very motivating for a certain set of students And and yes, Nellie We're certainly seeing the generational differences at work But these these ideas of having having these These these achievements Able to be displayed it leads us to a very useful notion That's just starting to make it into public schools and that is that no not that not badgers, but badges This has been happening This has been happening for years and Boy Scouts Girl Scouts Cub Scouts where when a child shows a certain level of mastery They're able to get something to display that they've been able to master that this is increasingly something that can be used on top of or in place of traditional Assessment systems to give kids opportunities to showcase what they know. There's currently a Challenge going on right now that Mozilla has created an open framework for creating and displaying these badges and Theoretically these badges may have value across Networks and what I mean by that is students may one day be able to Collect badges based on subjects that they've mastered in our high schools Take and display those badges into the college environment and then take and display those badges into the workplace So they might Potentially become a form of credentialing But the wonderful thing about badges when we think about what's great about Cub Scouts Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts Is that The badges are rarely prescriptive. We don't tell each Boy Scout Here is the path that you have to take to become an Eagle Scout We simply say there are a number of options and you're gonna have to meet a certain level of Achievement just like certification. So that's a great comment. What what I think traditionally has been a Certificate on paper can be gamified It can be made a little bit more inviting and you see the badges here are really sort of Visually appealing they're stimulating and not every student is going to be motivated by that but when you activate this notion of displaying mastery and giving students time space and flexibility to to pursue mastery we start to We start to get at intrinsic motivation. How many of you a quick show of hands How many of you have read Daniel Pink's drive which is a book on the sort of surprising truth about what motivates us Go ahead and raise your hand if you've read drive If you have you will certainly You'll recognize a few of these concepts. So a few of you there. I'll include that in today's reading list for certain Finally One thing that we need to think about And let me let me back up to Paula's question Will students be allowed to Display these badges or will there be an outcry of not allowing this outward competition and accomplishment and Paula I think that that is a tremendous point because When we start to get into this idea of assessing kids by mastery and then allowing students to show mastery We're gonna start to get into issues of fairness we're gonna start to get into issues of self-esteem and We're actually going to start to get into some of the core issues of how schools are designed right now we're designed on a Calendar and seat time model and when we start getting into this idea of giving kids Opportunities to master and to show their mat to demonstrate their masteries We're gonna have to start to challenge even some of the most basic assumptions about how our schools work and I think that we're gonna start to see a clash in values This is a generation that wants the control and flexibility over their own assessments But will our schools be set up for them to do that in a way that's fair and equitable across geographies across socioeconomic statuses across even Even sends a you know my new age differences just because the technology is is evolving so quickly So the yardstick is constantly moving for all of our kids So Paul that's a great question, and I think a real concern as we think about What the what the future of schools looks like we also need to acknowledge that not all mastery is individual and I talked a little bit earlier about the fact that our notions of plagiarism are changing I think it's also worthwhile to think about the fact that our notions of achievement are changing as well You see here a first robotics team that has come together and won a competition with the robot that they're displaying Very proudly up front. We're gonna see more opportunities for kids to balance self-paced with Collaboration so that learning is not an entirely independent process We're gonna see fluid teams working on projects in schools those grand challenges in engineering being a really good framework That we can use for that So with that I think I want to stop the the piece where I'm gonna just yappin yappin yapp And want to ask you guys some questions So in the chat window and please feel free to raise your hand if you've got some observations on this And would like to take the mic for a moment. I want to talk about First our implications for gifted students So where do you see with this notion of control over content and control over assessment? Flexible fluid and mastery based strategies. What are some of the implications that you see for gifted students? So please feel free to raise a hand We can have you take over the microphone for a few if you're if you're brave enough to do so Otherwise, please share your thoughts in the chat window Right. So as Paula notes tremendous freedom and ability to self-pace And certainly for highly accelerated students. That's gonna be great true differentiation I think Chris that you've got you're thinking exactly the right way and that that differentiation is as you know, gonna take the form of Increased challenges for students. We're always going to figure out where are they Mastering and how do we push just a little bit beyond where they're comfortable because that's the sweet spot for learning Nellie says this is gonna allow our students to become experts in areas of interest and passion And I do think that we're gonna see highly specialized curriculum In the future and I think would that we will eventually have some difficulty Balancing the need for students to pursue those passions, but still get a Broad and a broad and balanced education so that they become balanced individuals Good other thoughts and any other thoughts and please feel free to raise your hand If you want to take over the audio for a minute with some observations Well jump in here because I've got the audio shared with you and that is that Teacher training has to be different because If the students are trying to direct their own instruction The teachers have to get out of the way and be the guide on the side instead and be comfortable and prepared to do that Yeah And I will say having so what I have done this this semester With this Individualized syllabus is I've had to sort of acknowledge that at any given point My students may come to me on any given topic And and that actually frees you in some way because you quickly acknowledge that you cannot be the expert on all things Nor do you want to be but also they don't expect that of you They just want to make sure that you know how to engage the networks because they understand that there's tons of information out there And they fully expect to aggregate some of it they generally start with Wikipedia And often need some guidance on what are some better sources to start with and how do how do I engage in new? information networks But it is very useful So I know a number of people here Are involved in school technology purchasing and I wonder What what implications do you see with some of these generational changes? What implications do you see for technology purchasing? So take a moment type your thoughts about technology purchasing into the chat window and Again, you're always free to raise your hand and take over the microphone for a few minutes Nobody's got thoughts on technology purchasing, huh? All right increased bandwidth, that's a big one. We're gonna have to make sure that we Look at community Wi-Fi efforts that we make sure that at Really any point where students could be studying 24 hours a day. They've got the bandwidth to do so this idea of mobile devices Being in hand we're gonna need to make sure that our devices connect and that we've got networks that can support those devices We're gonna need to make sure as Chris said web-based resources that we can easily update because the body of knowledge is gonna be changing So frequently and Stacey notes that that's gonna create some difficulty because we're gonna need to make sure That we're keeping up to date pretty regularly One thing that I think we're gonna see and we've already started to see it in many districts is BYOD bring your own device to try to make sure that any way that students can get connected they do and We're certainly gonna see some friction as we move into having students using these devices And multitasking which is not necessarily a shared generational value in the classroom Paula notes that we're gonna have to teach multimedia skills, and I think that that is definitely true Information literacy is gonna be absolutely huge because we're gonna have to teach kids not only is How to access some of these new information networks, but how to vet what they find there and figure out what what passes the smell test We're gonna have to set up our schools so that we've got more investments in telepresence. We're gonna need Virtual courses, we're gonna need video conference courses. We're gonna need small centers Available to our kids. So all of these are gonna be really important Which means that we're gonna have to make investments in the infrastructure of telepresence mobile computing and Persistent networks, we're gonna need to make sure That whatever we do is always available to students because I think we're going to see The this notion of the school day merely being an eight to three construct change a little bit So great Gaston County's got a BYOD piloted school And Chris I think you'll probably be sort of thrilled to get that feedback I expect that your student feedback is gonna be very different than your teacher feedback And it may be positive on both sides, but it may be positive for very different reasons We're gonna need to look at adaptive software and this is something that hasn't fully made it into The educational technology arena just yet, but we're starting to see more vendors promise us These these systems that will capture significant performance data Adapt to that performance data and then present us with that performance data in the aggregate so that we're better able to target Interventions even at younger ages So the software is gonna do that for us increasingly. We're gonna have to try to make sure that we give them some opportunities Or that we give our kids some opportunities to use software like that Paula notes that Her her children had a chance to do a group project. They never met in person I do think that we will start to see more and more of that where students are who are in similar Coursework are connecting in very different ways both synchronously and asynchronously and they may never be physically Colocated and so we're certainly gonna have to deal with issues around Socialization as more of this happens because we know that school is not just a collection of courses We know that school is also about character education and giving kids opportunities To experiment and learn how to interact with each other in positive and meaningful ways one other suggestion I want to make for Technology purchasing is that we may want to look at investing in games and gaming systems because there's a lot that we can learn From that in Pender County Middle school down there has set up the warrior gaming layer In which they're using World of Warcraft and Minecraft As well as a number of Xbox games to teach certain skills And kids don't feel like they're learning But of course we are able to point them to some of the positive behaviors and what they are learning And that's really sort of the the cost to play is you got to be thoughtful About what it is that you're doing while you're playing that's going to be useful for you in other contexts So we're right at the end of our time I am so glad to have had the opportunity to hear some of your thoughts today I know that this this presentation probably sort of feels like a very high-level thing as I said at the beginning These are these are some concepts that excite me. I'm by no means an expert on that And I I don't know that this presentation was so much the answers about how we personalized learning for the gamer generation But rather some thoughts along the way as we make some of those decisions together Some of the background information that we need to consider when we think about those generational differences and how they are going to affect our attitudes about how kids learn versus the kids attitudes about how kids learn So I Certainly I'm happy to stick around as long as you guys want to be here and take any questions or continue to chat about any Any additional topics? But I also recognize some of you guys budgeted only an hour and I want to be respectful of that So thank you so much for being here today, and I hope that this will be useful. I'll be happy if If you'd like please Well, you know what I think I've got everybody's email address is that right right I'm gonna send out to everyone the link to the archive and Any materials that you would like to send along to great, okay? So in addition to the link to the archive, I will be sending out an example of a game-based syllabus and a short reading list So thank you guys so much for attending and again Please feel free to stick around and share some of your thoughts as Paula has in the chat window