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Imagine a high school student in the year 2015. She has grown up in a world where learning is as accessible through technologies at home as it is in the classroom, and digital content is as real to her as paper, lab equipment, or textbooks. At school, she and her classmates engage in creative problem-solving activities by manipulating simulations in a virtual laboratory or by downloading and analyzing visualizations of real-time data from remote sensors. Away from the classroom, she has seamless access to school materials and homework assignments using inexpensive mobile technologies. She continues to collaborate with her classmates in virtual environments that allow not only social interaction with each other but also rich connections with a wealth of supplementary content. Her teacher can track her progress over the course of a lesson plan and compare her performance and aptitudes across a lifelong “digital portfolio,” making note of areas that need additional attention through personalized assignments and alerting parents to specific concerns. What makes this possible is cyberlearning, the use of networked computing and communications technologies to support learning. Cyberlearning has the potential to transform education throughout a lifetime, enabling customized interaction with diverse learning materials on any topic—from anthropology to biochemistry to civil engineering to zoology. Learning does not stop with K–12 or higher education; cyberlearning supports continuous education at any age.

Most agencies manage sensitive citizen data: addresses, Social Security numbers, financial records and medical information. You name it, some state or local office has it, and probably electronically. The problem? Many theorize that the Millennials' penchant for online openness could unintentionally expose private information, leaving it ripe for the picking. Millennials bring innovative ideas about technology's use, but for that same reason, do they also pose new security risks?

Anti-virus vendor Symantec released a study in March 2008 assessing this issue. Symantec commissioned Applied Research-West to execute the study, and 600 participants were surveyed from different verticals, including government. Survey participants included 200 IT decision-makers, 200 Millennial workers and 200 non-Millennial workers born before 1980. The data revealed that Millennials are more likely than workers of other ages to use Web 2.0 applications on company time and equipment. Some interesting figures include: 69 percent of surveyed Millennials will use whatever application, device or technology they want at work, regardless of office IT policies; and only 45 percent of Millennials stick to company-issued devices or software, compared to 70 percent of non-Millennials.

How might young people be workplace assets? Could all that time typing or texting make them speedy typists, able to whip up memos at the drop of a hat? Does familiarity with new and emerging technologies have its benefit? You bet, according to Dustin Lanier, director of the Texas Council on Competitive Government. The council brings state leaders together to shape policy for government departments, including IT. "I think they've built an approach to work that involves a lot of multitasking," Lanier said of the Millennials. "Something will be loading on one screen, you alt-tab to another application and pull up an e-mail, the first process loads, you flip back, start a new process, flip to a forum and pull up a topic. It's frenetic but normal to that group." Lanier doesn't think Millennials present more of an IT threat than their older co-workers. After all, young people don't have a monopoly on being distracted in the office. "I can't tell you how many times I've walked by people's desks of all ages and seen Minesweeper up," he said. He thinks employers should embrace some Web 2.0 applications. Otherwise, Millennials might be discouraged from sticking around. According to Lanier, this younger work force comprises many people who think of themselves as free agents. Government should accommodate some of their habits in order to prevent them from quitting.

Cyber bullying conducted at school allows school authorities to more easily impose discipline. The use of school equipment to cyber bully also makes a stronger legal argument for action by the school. And if the student e-mails offensive speech to school or downloads it at school and then distributes it, the school is in an advantageous position regarding disciplining the student. However, speech created at home—such as the creation of a Web site—affords greater legal protection for cyber bullies.

“The problem with the approach that web speech created at home can—if accessed at school—become school speech that can be regulated is the very nature of the Internet. Once something is created and placed on the Internet, the author loses control over who can access the speech and where it can be accessed.”