Our Opinion: Congratulations to the Class of 2011

Back when keyboarding was known as typing, being all thumbs was a bad thing.

These days, typing with your thumbs is a valuable skill when operating a mobile device.

As the class of 2011 walks down the aisle, it's helpful to look back at the differences in experience between this generation of graduates and those who've come before.

Most members of the Class of 2011 were born in 1993-94. They grew up with the Web, both at home and in school.

They were just starting kindergarten about the same time that Google became a verb.

Instead of struggling with a manual when learning a new piece of software, they could just run a cursor over its parts and find out what it did. When they typed, they had a program looking over their shoulders to point out where the misspelled words or misplaced parts of speech were.

In school it was just as important to learn how to find a fact as it was to learn the fact itself. As they advanced through school, they learned to communicate electronically without the benefit of a computer, using those thumbs to type out texts, and then tweets.

Members of the Class of 2011 participated in traditional clubs, but they socialized online in MySpace, and then Facebook, turning friend into a verb.

Social media have set a match to information, sending it roaring across the landscape like a wildfire in dry grass.

The Class of 2011 is positioned to take advantage of that revolution and so much more.

So here's giving the Class of 2011 a big thumb's up, and a hearty congratulations. Good job.