Comments on: A generation gap?

By: Cherryl Quimet

Cherryl Quimet — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:13:30 +0000

http://treatthepeople.com/article/closing-the-gap-global-health-equity-and-the-commission-on-social-determinants-of-health/

By: Hardware Heretic 404

Hardware Heretic 404 — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 11:54:06 +0000

Hey Mr. U, that was an interesting post. When you say that our generation wants things to work and has no patience with them, you’re generally right. When my computer slows down or an error pops up I scream at it for a few seconds. And then I try to fix it. I think most people my age would scream at it period, but thats mainly because they probably wouldn’t know how to fix it. Like when my USB breaks (I think I broke like 10 USBs in the last year) I have this urge to snap the case open, and then drop it in my drawer, since there’s no way to fix a USB with a shorted out board. But for software its easier because sometimes the people who make the software provide the source code for it, then you can play around with it to your content. Personally though, I like screaming.

By: Will Richardson

Will Richardson — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 16:08:43 +0000

Funny…I must be older than David. I just yesterday gave up on Flock… ;0) I don’t know if it’s more patience or if it’s that us older folks (is 48 old?) might think the technology is supposed to work and galdarnit, if it doesn’t it must be us. I have to say, however, that when it comes to looking at new tools, if I don’t get some goodness back quickly, I let them go. Flock had enough to get that initial buy in…

Happy Holidays! Sure wish I was getting ready for a trip to Shanghai… ;0(

Will

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:01:50 +0000

“I was thinking about all the trouble I was having with Elgg in our classes and how the students hated it when the program had an error. Of course they didn’t understand it, but they didn’t need to…things are just suppose to work and if they don’t, then you don’t use them.”

I would completely disagree with this – if you have ever used MySpace you will know it produces errors almost all the time. The problem comes down to knowing why they should bother using a system, not the quality of the system’s programming or design – again, check out MySpace for interface design, it would not get past one single interface design group. However, users don’t care if they see a reason to use it.

Students, for that fact anyone, have no patience for anything that doesn’t interest them. Therefore, this is not a software issue but rather a challenge for educators to actually do something interesting, all we do is provide the tools.

By: Chris Craft

Chris Craft — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 11:20:16 +0000

I absolutely resonate with this one. At my young age, I have such the terrible tendency to be impatient. Just this morning (it’s just after 6Am here) I posted a help topic to a forum for a piece of open source software I am working with and within minutes got irritated that no one had responded. I had to really check that within myself.

I think teachers work harder than ever to keep students occupied to prevent idle hands. Does maturity indicate patience? Gee, I hope not. I should work on that…;)

By: Mark Ahlness

Mark Ahlness — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 07:17:45 +0000

Jeff, I’ve met you in person, so when I say I’m older than David W, I know you won’t be too shocked . Your post here fascinates me in many ways, on many levels… Why, only yesterday I was running around with my third graders, troubleshooting “disk error” messages they were getting on our Sony Mavica – yes, it takes a 3.5 floppy – and observing where they went with that message. Floppy disks are so incredibly slow, and it is interesting to watch my kids this year take pictures, save on a floppy, and WAIT for the floppy to display in PowerPoint. My (limited) experience tells me my 8 and 9 year olds have more of a “fix it” mentality than you suggest. I hope so… I will try and write some on this. David Warlick had some interesting observations in Mature.