Generation gap between students and faculty May 19, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , trackbackAs somebody who, during three years at University, published all my work under an independent domain rather than rely on the institution’s ‘portfolio tool’ , I can fully appreciate the following insight:
Follow-up on Facebook.edu: Students, Software, and Emergent Social Practices | connect.educause.edu
there is a major generation gap emerging between older academics and administrators and students. For the older academics, identity is protected through restricting access to it; by using the language of privacy and confidentiality to talk about it; by preferring password-protected environments. For the younger students, identity is protected by becoming your own publisher and marketer; the emerging consensus is that you control your image and reputation by editing (and circulating) it yourself. By speaking first, not last. This generation gap may yet end up being more socially significant than the much-heralded “digital divide.”
As one of the older students, I’m not sure that ‘generation gap’ is the right name for it, though. Are most of the younger students just as comfortable with being ‘exposed’ on the public internet or are there perhaps plenty of young fogeys in the making, content to hide inside of the gated communities?
Technorati Tags: digitaldivide, eportfolios, generationgap, identity, gatedcommunities, academics
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
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