Millennials talk, Nassau Community College

April 24th, 2007 Stewart

Just writing a quick note tonight in preparation for tomorrow’s Millennials talk at Nassau Community College, Long Island. I’ve embedded the slides below if anyone needs to look at them. I also wanted to add a few links:

Teaching Naked - Tomorrow’s Professor
http://amps-tools.mit.edu/tomprofblog/archives/
2007/04/786_teaching_na.html
I really like this article and the ideas it conveys. Not everything will work for everyone, but there’s some good ideas here on the whole.

23 things - Learning 2.0
http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/
For faculty who need to “catch up” with the technological savvy of their students, here’s 23 things that make one outstanding tutorial.

Educating the Net Generation
http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen
Free e-book from EDUCAUSE, and possibly the best book on college-age Millennial mindset ever.

I will add more on Wednesday after I get back. In the meantime, I’d like to encourage any and all NCC folks to post their comments and ideas here so we can continue our conversation.

Posted in 5tothenext, education, millennials | No Comments »

Student loan programs being investigated

April 6th, 2007 Stewart

Federal Official in Student Loans Held Loan Stock - New York Times

Today’s modern student loan program is a corrupt exercise in corporate profiteering built on the backs of students who find themselves left with no other options. Kudos to Andrew Cuomo for investigating student lenders and universities for their ethically-confused practices. Let’s hope to see this investigation extend to the federal level very soon.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

"You’re Okay, I’m Perfect"

April 1st, 2007 Stewart

For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too - New York Times

In Millennials Rising, there’s a cartoon of a Mil kid in her t-shirt that reads, “You’re Okay, I’m Perfect!” The quest for perfection among these kids, or more accurately pushed upon them by their ambitious parents, gets cited quite a bit as a Mil trait.

This article does a fair job of outlining this trait, specifically in teen girls, and in particular the added caveat that this perfection needs to be perceived by everyone around these kids as being “effortless.” “Effortless hotness,” as one girl calls it, but also effortless athleticism, effortless intellect, and effortless character and spirit.

Of course, anything close to perfection comes at tremendous cost. (See Robbins’ The Overachievers for more on that.) Career burnouts and divorce rates will likely rise considerably with the Mils. Maybe the emphasis should be that while one should strive to be great, it’s still okay to be just “okay?”

Posted in 5tothenext, education, millennials | 2 Comments »

I don’t do flowcharts…

March 20th, 2007 Stewart

That said, here’s my first effort at using Gliffy to map out workflow on PubDrug. Any suggestions or ideas would be most welcome. I’ll be editing it considerably in the weeks to come.

Posted in gliffy, informatics, pubdrug | 2 Comments »

Causes for concern?

March 19th, 2007 Stewart

Study: Prescription drugs a problem on campus - CNN.com

Messrs. Howe & Strauss took quite a bit of umbrage with Twenge’s study on Millennials being narcissistic. One item in particular that they discuss is drug abuse rates:

Drug abuse too is a classic barometer of self-involved behavior. According to the highly regarded annual Monitoring the Future survey, cigarette and alcohol consumption in grades 8, 10 and 12 are now at their lowest levels since the survey began in 1975. The rate of illicit drug use is much lower for today’s kids than it was for their parents when they were in high school.

What they don’t mention is the sudden and dramatic increase in prescription drug abuse, not to mention the fact that one-half of all college age students routinely binge drink, this from the even-better-regarded National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Other elements of Howe & Strauss’s argument seem a little off-track as well. For example, they cite lower violent crime numbers as a sign of Millennial altruism, but completely ignore illegal media downloading, an activity that is largely driven by youth culture and the need for immediate gratification.

Part of the problem is that all young people tend to be pretty narcissistic, regardless of generation, and Howe & Strauss would do well to remember that.

Posted in drug abuse, millennials, statistics | No Comments »

The Information Literacy Equation

March 9th, 2007 Stewart

I’ll be giving a Millennials talk at SUNY Fredonia in just a few hours and I’m pretty excited about it. My colleague and CIL co-founder Chris Hollister will be joining me, and it promises to be a special event.

What makes it special is that this is a conference on multimodal literacies, and that I’ll be addressing the concern of information literacy for the Millennial generation. My audience will be primarily English professors and librarians, and to have those two groups in the room while talking about information literacy can be a little daunting. But it’s also an exciting opportunity to launch a discussion among the parties best able to address information literacy concerns for their school.

I’m posting my slides here to be shared with the group (no handouts today) and this post can serve as a springboard for continuing our discussion. I’ll post more later today when I’m back from the event.

Posted in CIL, information literacy, millennials, writing | No Comments »

Five to the next generation…

March 4th, 2007 Stewart

Fellow library blogger Jennimi and I have started up a little meme from our comments on my last post. We’re asking everyone to post with their response to the following question:

“What 5 things would you say to the next generation?”

She’s already posted hers which I like a lot; here’s mine:

* Education is a process, not an outcome. If you aren’t learning anything in college, odds are you are failing the system as much as (if not more than) it is failing you.

* Other people cannot tell you who you are. Self-discovery can really only happen when you unplug from the world.

* Do you really want your children to see those pictures of you doing body shots in Cabo? Because once they are out there, they are out there forever.

* The only people who have ever been accused of being great are the ones who had original ideas and built original things.

* Give something back every single day.

You can join in by tagging your post “5tothenext” and posting your five things. To get the ball rolling, I’m calling out:

M. Banks
D. Rothman
M. Zafron

(David, if you do this, I’ll finally post that “five things you don’t know about me” thing that I didn’t do before.) Thanks all!

Posted in 5tothenext, education, generation x, millennials | 4 Comments »

The Conceit of Millennials

March 4th, 2007 Stewart

Self-Awareness Not a Problem at College - washingtonpost.com

While not really coming as much of a shock, it is noteworthy in how this research flies in the face of Howe & Strauss’s assertion that these kids were more altruistic than other generations. Meanwhile, Gen X’s Content of our Character Project has been collecting letters to the next generation that would hopefully appeal to their sense of social conscience.

EDIT: March 5, 10:45 AM — Howe & Strauss bite back. FWIW, I find that after a little while their relentless optimistic spin wears almost as thin as the generational bashing I find elsewhere. Truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

Posted in education, generation x, millennials | 5 Comments »

Updates to Pubdrug

February 27th, 2007 Stewart

Main Page - Pubdrug

Our first several completed and certified monographs are now up. Once a monograph completes the review process it is “locked down” to be protected from malicious edits. Our certified monographs are:

• Alendronate
• Amlodipine
• Atorvastatin
• Cholecalciferol
• Escitalopram
• Montelukast
• Sertraline

This progress would not have been possible without the amazing efforts of a handful of fourth-year professional Pharm.D. students at the University at Buffalo. Their user pages are linked from the above records and I encourage everyone to visit them.

More news to come soon.

Posted in informatics, pubdrug, university at buffalo | No Comments »

Possibilities & Pitfalls: Kids living on the Internet

February 22nd, 2007 Stewart

A couple of links to accompany my brief talk Thursday morning at Elmwood Franklin:

Pew Internet: Social Networking and Teens
An excellent new survey report from Pew, highlighting teens use of sites like MySpace & Facebook.

Roommates, the online version - NYT
Innovative uses of Facebook and other online social engines to help select college roommates.

Beloit College Mindset List
A very popular list for identifying traits of the new college freshman.

High-tech cheating in college - NYT
Article cites the book, The Cheating Culture, a fascinating read about how values in the U.S. have led to widespread cheating and fraud in many areas of life, not just education.

EFF on Student Blogging
A very effective little FAQ for student bloggers. Gives a little insight into the potential pitfalls of posting about your school, job, friends, etc.

Cornell: Thoughts on Facebook
Another good overview for students about the ramifications of social networking online.

I’ll post more later on, depending on where the conversation goes tomorrow morning. Also, attendees are invited to comment on this post, anything and everything about the session. I’d appreciate your feedback.

ADDED 11:50 am Thursday — Thank you again to Nina Cascio and Laura Mangan, as well as the parents and staff at Elmwood Franklin, for having me out this morning. I really hope we can continue our conversation here.

With several mentions of child safety online, I thought I would share this official Google post that my wife forwarded to me. It suggests, essentially, four different approaches to the issue, and is well worth a quick read.

Posted in millennials, workshops | 1 Comment »