That this new high frequency ringtone isn’t the only new technology that we’re oblivious to…

Some students are downloading a ring tone off the Internet that is too high-pitched to be heard by most adults. With it, high schoolers can receive text message alerts on their cell phones without the teacher knowing.

When I was a highschool student, I participated in an “experimental” math curriculum. Every student was required to buy and use a graphing calculator. The teachers were great, and I’m glad they made the effort to introduce us to new technology. What I remember most was how quickly the students learned (and taught each other) how to create and store text based cheat sheets into the devices. Physics and chemistry equations immediately became a lot easier for us to “memorize”.

We’re relatively helpless to teach technology to kids that are growing up immersed in the stuff. It seems that sometimes the best we can do is create conditions in which they’ll learn to use the tools effectively and to good purpose.

A couple weeks ago I was in the Apple store in downtown SF. I don’t lust for Apple gear like some people, and although I’ve been in their store twice, I honestly don’t see the huge attraction. It must just be that I’m still a windows user. Regardless, I had the experience of watching two 11 year old girls play a typing video game. I seriously doubt that Apple’s admittedly clever experience designers had any intention of how that would affect me. The game I watched was designed to teach typing skills, and both of the girls were tearing along at 130 words per minute.

What are the economic impacts of a generation of knowledge workers that can type at least twice as fast as I can? Thanks for the reminder Apple.

It also got me wondering; can we even socialize children to become what we consider to be successful adults if their methods of communication are so much more efficient than ours that we can’t even perceive the vast majority of their conversations? How many parents out there have a myspace account?

I spend time trying to train adults to use new communication tools, and I rarely comment on the importance of closing the generational gap. Usually people want to learn to make their business more successful. Should the ability to learn from children be part of their goals?

Yeah, probably.

I’m lucky in that regard, because I work enough with the old school to understand a little of their wisdom, and I work just enough with the new school to understand a little of their styles of communication.