At some point, I would like to see you develop your view of the student-teacher dynamic, because a massive body of scholarship gives us the picture of the world you describe, full of students interacting with technology and with each other in incredibly complex ways, and a different world of academia that is ostensibly oblivious to that world. How would you suggest that those of us in the World of the Ivory Tower wishing to build bridges to the World of the Silicone Chip using what we see as “technology” do so in a way that engages/invites/assimilates Millennials/Post-Millennials into the academy? I certainly see that as our intent, but when you suggest that, for example, students may have abandoned email and moved onto text messaging precisely –because– it’s not connected with their education, I hear you saying (I hope I’m not putting words in your mouth) that the more we try to bridge these worlds leveraging the technology students are using, the more we are potentially driving them into other technologies to, what, get away from us? Have a space that has nothing to do with formal pedagogy? (I’m scratching my head, having an RCA dog moment….)

I agree with your argument that the simple us/them dichotomy is a facile one, but when you only have 40 minutes…..

I spent too much time on YouTube. Mea culpa. But I think that’s OK, because I fear that if I had spent any more time on SL, I may have overwhelmed some of the audience, and that is the last thing I wanted to do.

BTW, using SL doesn’t make you a geek…spending money in it and scripting in it does (that’s actually a little “übergeeky”)…like the three avatars in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2hrpELG4vU