My perception in the old and the new generation

In a field where revolutions in media technology change, what we teach and what we study will definitely needed to add our skill set. Also, new communications technology and platforms in particular are arriving fast and furiously. Most of all, we should not employ technology for technology's sake, but using it to solve problems to help real people.
  Younger generation grew up wholly within the era of the commercial Internet. Eighteen-year-olds have seen their lives permeated by social media for almost a decade. As I have observed, teachers in their 20's and early 30's, are probably the most tech-oriented generation of educators yet.

Many senior professors are now embracing this revolution. But clearly the young are digital natives from the start. There is a real danger of a technology gap becoming a wedge issue between faculty members. Of course, proficiency in communications technologies means much more than owning the latest version of the iPhone or following a Twitter feed. Being "up" on tech or "part geek" is a useful component of being a modern professor—Professor 2.0—because all research and teaching are affected by new software, hardware, and wetware (ways of thinking about new and emerging media and technology). 

To discover facts today, however, the required skill set contains much that is traditional but also much that is new. One kind of proficiency does not replace the other; they are complementary. Likewise, I observed that constant technological revolutions that update what they do and how they teach.

Second, becoming expert in social media and new and emerging communications technologies is not to be confused with becoming a worshiper at the tech temple. To critique the role of technologies in society (or in the sciences, or in politics, or in the classroom itself), one must first understand those technologies, both in theory and in application. The researchers in my discipline who are the most clever critics of the effect of, say, the text-messaging culture on writing and thinking, or of the over reliance on new teaching gadgets as pedagogical remedy, are people who are themselves very familiar with those technologies.

In addition, for the students there is a definite "cool factor" we can't ignore if we want to be successful teachers in the modern classroom. Whether pre-service teachers or teachers, showing that you can use and understand the technologies of the world that students live in buys you credibility and respect for everything else you want to teach. A mathematics professor gives this example: "If a student comes to you asking for help in using their graphics calculator and you reply, 'I never learned that,' they instantly feel you don't respect them and are out of touch."

Finally, we need both a new and a senior generation of Professor 2.0, telling the world what our contributions are. Many aspects of the lives and careers of today's professors are under attack. It is vital that we eloquently and entertainingly speak up and out, to the public, legislators, parents, alumni, and especially students, explaining what we do and its importance to society. Faculty members cannot sit around waiting to be called by a reporter or writing an occasional op-ed. Social media are the perfect venue to evangelize our knowledge, accomplishments, and centrality to the continuing mission of educating our nation's students. The senior Professor 2.0 could also be an inspiration to many Filipino workers who, as adult learners, want to come back to enhance their educations for new or recast careers.

There are definite steps that individuals, departments, and institutions can take to shrink technology gaps. The most obvious is training. Tech training is a guaranteed investment that no school should ignore. 

Yet the encouragement of faculty to expand their skills can't be punitive or negative. Telling a senior history professor to devote 20 hours to a data-mining workshop because "otherwise you'll look like an idiot to your students" is not the right way to promote enthusiastic self-innovation. Institutions need to create logical point and built-in motivation.To me, the greatest opportunity for closing a technology gap is that the novice and the senior, the interested and the experienced, can be brought together in partnerships. Consider a team-teaching arrangement between a young student prepping for her first learning and a senior student, long seasoned in the classroom: How much they could teach each other! We have so long thought of mentoring as a one-way street, with the old hand tutoring and advising the novitiate. But in today's academic environment the generations can teach each other, and beneficiaries of such an exchange include students, colleges and universities, and higher education itself.

The technology gap on campuses, whatever it is and whatever it means, is a positive opportunity for us future teachers to redesign ourselves and our institutions together.