Very, very true. We need to be continually reminded that wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, for example. Since ideas may be processed and related by so many minds in such a short amount of time, there is going to be much lost “in translation.” Like that telephone game on steroids.

Joel, the printing press has only been around for a little over 500 years, so libraries were really a more modern invention. He was really speaking of learning in terms of the teacher was always the expert in class. I mean when you did math, did anyone ever not go to class and learn from a book, no the teacher was the source of information. Students don’t learn now to write by hanging out in the library. Of course there are some exceptions but thats not the way 95% of people learn, they learn from a teacher, if this wasnt true, we wouldnt have schools, we would just go and hang at a library all day. His point was is that this is changing, the teacher is not the expert anymore, because of the internet, people can google something and read an article written by someone smarter and more knowledgeable than their teacher. This is a new way to learn, it hasn’t happened before and its changing the face of education.

Pictures have been around for thousands of years, but that is not how our parents and grandparents and so on learned, they read books. They did not learn anything in front of a screen, it was all in books, that is different. The point with the left brained right brained stuff is that reading stimulates different parts of your brain than watching something on a screen, as a result it is changing the way people learn, scientists are saying that parts of the brain are different in younger generations than older when they are born because their brains are adapting to a new way to learn.

Adam, not super familiar with the argument between the two, all I would say is that thats about how far generation gaps are, so while their will be some differences, they will probably be more similar than different. Think about this, Gen Xers are now just entering their 40’s. The first Gen X-ers are in their 40’s and the youngest are in their mid 20’s.

To everyone, there are obviously stereotypes about generations and people don’t like to be lumped into them, and we will always have people that do not fit like a cookie cutter into them, but being someone that works with Millenials, I cannot tell you in my experience how similar they are, that includes you Joel:) I think the desire to be different from everyone else is actually something that marked Gen X especially, so while they all may think they are different but in actuality they’re the same.

Just wondering.

I think I’ve always had a problem with these generalizations about generations. Sure, I suppose we can make broad statements about large groups of people based on cultural changes, but most people will be an exception to at least some of them.

And the right/left brained thing? I still don’t see why that matters.

Other than that, it all sounds great. It’s very true that technology and independent learning have grown a ton in the last 20 years, so anything we can do to accomidate that is awesome.

Doesn’t everybody though? Minus the groups thing. I mean, who just wants to be bored to death with a lecture (unless the person speaking is engaging or saying something that you’re really interested in).