How I'd love to be shown up

Sometimes I get tired of being the alpha geek.

I keep hearing about how my people the age of my students are all so wired and comfortable with technology. Then I ask my students to do a couple of simple "push button" tasks on the web like creating an RSS feed, and it completely flummoxes them.

I feel validated by this article, which says:

(A)lthough young people demonstrate an ease and familiarity with computers, they rely on the most basic search tools and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web(.)

So instead of expertise, students have only a thin veneer of technical skills. I would so much like to learn things from my students -- at least occasionally -- about technical things.