Teaching Generation M

Teaching Generation M: A Handbok for Librarians and Educators
Edited by Vibiana Bowman Cvetkovic and Robert J. Lackie
ISBN: 9781555706685
Published: June 2009
6 x 9 | 350 pp. | $75.00
This will be pubished soon and they’re taking orders! And in the interests of ful disclosure, I had the privilege to write a chapter for this tome. I also got to read many of the other chapters. I recommend them all.
“Working with and devising quality educational resources for “Generation M” – today’s group of teens and young adults born in the early 1980s through the mid 1990s – can be a challenge for librarians and instructors who may not relate well to their multitasking, technophile students. Here, editors Cvetkovic ( named of one of the “2005 Library Movers and Shakers” by Library Journal) and Lackie (the 2006 recipient of the ALA Kenneth Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship) answer the core questions you’ll need to facilitate new and powerful learning opportunities for your Gen M audience, including:
• Who are the members of Gen M?
• What is their shared cultural experience and how does it influence learning?
• How can librarians and educators best meet this cohort’s educational requirements?
Cvetkovic, Lackie and their contributors debunk common myths and misconceptions about this unique generation to provide a realistic understanding of their instructional needs and learning styles. You’ll find a comprehensive introduction and overview of Gen M, including key term definitions, background information, and a clear idea of the scope of issues facing educators charged with teaching and working with this age group. A section on the emergent digital community inherent to Gen M examines the personal, sociological, and educational implications and impact on future pedagogy. The authors cover popular online tools like Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, many of which play a large role in Gen M information retrieval, and also address key educational theories and provide instruction for creating lessons and learning objects that can be used in both traditional and online educational environments. Examples of current best practices are provided along with corresponding instruction for designing and implementing them in your library or classroom.
Specifically geared toward librarians, media specialists and educators of all types, this much–needed guidebook offers unprecedented insight and instruction that will help you succeed at the head of this distinctive young class.”
And just in case you think I spend too much time talking and writing about Millennials, the latest book chapter I’ve writen and submitted is for a book focused on the 55 plus cohort of people in libraries!
Both chapters have bad Karma though! The GenM one was the only writing I lost in a bad hard drive crash in Nashville after writing for a few days on the beach in Jamaica last Summer. (Yes there is an actual wireless beach there!). And then just over this past Christmas I had completed about 75% of the 55 Plus chapter (coming soon) right after a back-up and my hard drive failed again, completely! I had to start from scratch and lost the whole thing. How the gods can know you only have one piece to lose after a full back up and both times for it to be a big piece of writing, I don’t know. Anyway, I can truly say that tears and sweat are in this work.
Stephen