According to Graine Creole, you don't really understand the power of Web 2.0 tools until engage with them. Having not engaged with Twitter or any form of microblogging at all, I am probably not qualified to discuss them. But here goes.
As with all Web 2.0 tools, microblogging could be utilised to encourage collaboration and social learning. As far as I can tell, the most important differences between micro-blogging and other Web 2.0 forms is that it is brief (although quite long compared to nano-blogging ) and, therefore, possibly more suited to being used with smart phones, or iphones, or whatever the kids are calling them these days. Unlike say a blog or discussion board where you might wait for hours or days for a response, microblogging guarantees almost instant feedback from one's peers, or at least those peers who's parents can afford to buy them fancy phones. It, therefore, may allow for a greater intensity of social interaction than say blogs. On the surface, this would seem to have some advantages for education. In, particular, I'd imagine microblogging would be quite useful and time effective way of collaborating on written work – it could be a powerful tool for bouncing ideas of others – and may be beneficial for those less confident with their writing.
As a 'digital immigrant' however, I am a little sceptical of some of the utopian visions for microblogging in education that I have come across on the Web. Given the greater scope for social interaction, there is inevitably more scope for misuse. I'd imagine that as a teacher, it would be difficult to keep track of everyone's tweets – and, therefore, cyber-bullying and off task tweeting may become a problem. Also, while as teachers we should be looking at ways to encourage meaningful collaboration, I get the impression that with the prevalence of social networking on the Web, children are finding it more difficult to form their own unique identities. (Go to your local shopping mall and you'll see what I mean). We should also be encouraging students to think for themselves and not feel the need to be validated by their peers every 10 seconds.
Why I watch “Mad As Hell”
4 years ago
I was interested in your comment on social networking and identity formation. There's a huge amount of work being done in this area at the moment: danah boyd (yes, all lower case) is one name to look out for. In fact, it's clear that identity formation processes are very much at work in SNSs, just as they are in 'real world' networks, but there are obviously some differences.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this is one area where there is a real need for educational intervention, in helping students develop the full set of literacies and other skills they need to develop a public persona online. After all, having an online persona is going to be increasingly central to so many aspects of our lives, from the personal and social through to the educational and professional.
What do you think?
Yes, I think you're right. Given the fear that exists amongst parents and teachers regarding social networking, students are possibly missing out on instruction in developing a lot of these skills and literacies. So as teachers, we should not be shying away from using these technologies - in moderation of course.
ReplyDeleteI was deliberately being a little provocative with my comments regarding the apparent homogenisation of our youth. I think that commercial culture probably has something to do with it. Adolescents and children have more money spent on them than ever before and marketeers are well aware of this. Consequently children have been targeted pretty ruthlessly by advertising over recent times and now suffer the same insecurities about identity and pressures to conform through consumption of consumer goods as the rest of us.
Actually, I agree with you. There's a lot of work being done in this area as well, i.e., about the commercialisation of childhood which is occurring, in part, through marketing to children through digital social networks, virtual worlds, gaming environments, etc. That strengthens the case for teachers engaging with students in talking about these areas, so that students do at least encounter a point of view which might lead them to question some of the marketing and selling that is going on. If you're interested in this area, I'd recommend 'Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet' by K.C. Montgomery (2007), and the more general 'Children and the Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging Realities' by Sonia Livingstone (2008).
ReplyDelete