4 digital skills you’ll never teach your kids right

N-gen, millennials, generation Y – the generations you are now teaching or are about to teach will have inherently different life, jobs, and worldviews. The technology and digital realities are not something they acquired or learned, but were born into and have shaped their experiences in ways we couldn’t have predicted. Skills like communication, collaboration, openness and processing information have quite a different meaning for them. The focus of this talk will be to highlight just how much these skills differ from ours, through examples of how they use technologies. In each section, the talk will highlight the benefits and how these skills can be used in a workplace, but also state the main challenge. 1. COMMUNICATION Technologies: Snapchat, Super.me, reddit, tumblr, 7 cups of tea Benefits: Boosting creativity, vulnerability, openness to new people and easier interaction Challenges: How do you keep the conversation personal through a screen? 2. COLLABORATION Technologies: Google docs, Slack, Basecamp, Soundcloud, 8tracks, Hitrecord enable us to work with each other across borders, technologies, departments, areas of expertise Benefits: Inclusivity, team work and a sense of community Challenge: How to teach children to take pride in work that is never entirely their own? 3. OPENNESS Technologies: Whatever tools, technologies, programming languages are relevant, and they keep changing by rapidly Benefits: Greater courage in taking on new challenges and accepting different experiences Challenge: How to not feel like an “impostor” when you never get to perfectly master anything because it changes to quickly? 4. PROCESSING INFORMATION Technologies: Wikis, social media, Twitter, Instagram news, Vine, podcasts, messaging apps Benefits: Easy access to all information and knowledge, any time, any place, resulting in democratizing knowledge Challenges: How to help kids filter and process information when you can no longer shield them from it? As a generation who learned those skills, we can hardly teach them to those who acquired them – but it’s more important than ever for teachers to learn with the children and help them discover the ways to tackle the challenges they will face.