America’s undisputed champion of Social Media in education, Tom Whitby, was recently jolted by an exchange on Twitter with a professional colleague. Big ideas in education were “getting drowned out, ” his tech savvy friend remarked, as a result of the endless discussions about Social Media and the heavy emphasis on promoting “connectedness for educators.” Social Media is a powerful medium that can be used to learn, but our near obsession with it may be at the expense of other powerful ideas. His Twitter friend went even further: ” it’s still all pretty much primordial soup.” http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/social-media-help-or-hindrance-to-education-reform/
Sparked by that intellectual challenge, Tom took to his blog An Island View (May 29, 2012) to make the case, once again, for today’s educators to take full advantage of the Social Media in leading a 21st century revolution in education. As the founder of PLN, the Professional Learning Network, he can be quite passionate about its power to create “professional learning communities” spanning whole continents. Like Canada’s 21st Century Educator, David Wees, he credits Social Media for giving him a new lease on life. It has certainly made a difference in their professional lives spawning #edchat and attracting a legion of camp followers. Whether it is the harbinger of a new age education revolution is more open to question.
Since the explosion of Twitter, early adopters have been mad about its miracle powers. Back in September 2010. Sarah Kessler sung its praises in “The Case for Social Media in Schools.” A year after Grade 7 teacher Elizabeth Delmatoff started a pilot social media program in her Portland, Oregon classroom, Kessler claimed that it worked like magic with kids. Some 20% of students school-wide were completing extra assignments for no credit, grades had gone up more than 50%, and chronic absenteeism was reduced by more than a third. For the first time in its history, the school met its “adequate yearly progress goal for absenteeism.” http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/
Social Media was trumpeted as the next great thing in inspiring learning and student engagement. Zealots like Kessler made a compelling case and rhymed off its advantages: 1. Social Media is Not Going Away;2. When Kids Are Engaged, They Learn Better; 3. Safe Social Media Tools Are Available — And They’re Free; 4. Replace Online Procrastination with Social Education; 5. Social Media Encourages Collaboration Instead of Cliques; 6. Cell Phones Aren’t the Enemy.
Her conclusion was a call to action. “Nobody would dispute that the risks of children using social media are real and not to be taken lightly. But there are also dangers offline. The teachers and parents who embrace social media say the best way to keep kids safe, online or offline, is to teach them.”
Since then, educators have become far more tech savvy, and, inspired by enthusiasts like Tom Whitby and David Wees, have adopted Social Media as a primary Professional Development tool and begun to introduce it into the kingdom of the classroom.
Promoters of Social Media can sound messianic. “We all learn from other people….” but now” face to face connections have never been completely replaced, but rather enhanced, by technology.” Borrowing freely from Marshall McLuhan’s The Gutenburg Galaxy, they trace the steps from pen and ink to the printing press to electronic media. In Whitby’s words: ” Technology historically allowed learning to expand from face to face contact to distances beyond the limits of both time and space, and the Internet has moved that to a whole new level.” It is, he insists, time we began empowering educators with the Hi Tech tools and preparing students for life in this century.
Visionaries like Whitby are even dreaming of Schools that function like Twitter. ” I wish all educators had Professional Learning Networks like mine, but it is not a style of learning suited for everyone., ” he wrote. “Nevertheless, I began wondering what it would be like if the types of sharing, collaboration, reflection and discussion that are continuing activities on Twitter could at least be attempted in the school building environment.” http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/what-if-school-was-more-like-twitter/
Promoters of Facebook and Twitter in schools have run into roadblocks on the North American educational highway. In many School Districts, they hit brick walls, especially so in Canadian K-12 school systems. That’s fully documented in my January 2012 SQE study, The Sky Has Limits, a recent look at the impediments to online learning and virtual schools in all 13 provinces and territories. http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/parents/theskyhaslimits Teachers are free to experiment with Social Media and to attend Ed Camps on their own time. Far too many schools are “Out of Bounds” and an amazing number of elementary schools remain under IT lock-down regimes.
Fascination with Social Media is growing rapidly among teachers. Some estimates are that there are as many as 500,000 connected educators, globally using social Media for professional learning. That sounds astronomical until you realize that there 7.2 million educators in the United States alone.
Skeptics about the value of Social Media can still be found everywhere in the “bricks and mortar” school system. High schools are full of contrarians who delight in quoting the latest commentary from Nicholas G. Carr and other leading critics. His Blog, Rough Type, is a veritable treasure trove of barbs and amunition for foes of the high tech revolution. Hot on the heals of his brilliant critique, The Shallows, he is fond of lampooning those addicted to Social Media. His recent post comparing Various types of Social Networks to “recreational drugs” cuts close to the bone. After reading it, Facebook does seem like “pot” and Twitter may well simulate the effect of “Black Beauties.” http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2012/04/social_networks.php
Breaking down the barriers in schools can be exhausting, sucking away energy and draining us of ideas. Many gifted educators seek solace and refuge in the simple pleasures of a good book and a receptive class of students. Pushing Social Media, like flogging IT, is all too often about the process rather than the substance of education, teaching, and learning. Learning how to learn seems to have supplanted the core mission of education — learning something that is worth knowing and actually matters.
Is Social Media a help or a hindrance to improving the quality of education in schools? Is introducing the learning tools crowding out important ideas associated with education reform or, pedagogy, or methodology in education? Is it a distraction rather than a means for transformation? In short, have Big Ideas gotten lost in the scramble?
I think one key aspect of social media that I appreciate is that the cost of social media is just time (albeit this is still an expensive resource for most teachers) – which given today’s professional development budgets, is a huge bargain. The other aspect of social media I like is that it puts the onus on learning on the teacher, and gives them some autonomy on how they use the tool for learning.
The problem with most social media, as I am finding more and more often, is that there is a tremendous amount of noise, and as more people are posting ideas and writing blog posts, the average quality of the information one receives via social media is tending toward zero. On the other hand, perhaps this can help teachers develop more of a crap detector, provided there are strong voices in social media pointing out the cruft.
Social media, like Wikipedia, has added exponentially to the mass of information inundating us. It is, at times, overwhelming, especially for people like us who are naturally curious about everything to do with education, teaching, and learning.
Years ago the late Neil Postman warned us about the dangers. In Teaching as a Subversive Activity, he advised teachers of my generation that we needed a “built-in crap detector.”
I had a nice chat with him in the early 1990s, in an elevator during a Liberal Education Conference at Carleton University, I thanked him for teaching us to keep asking those pointed questions. Your comment brought it all back for me.
I’ve read Postman’s critique as well. I watched a talk yesterday by Sugata Mitra in which he suggested that what would be an effective education for many children is the ability to read, access to good information, and armor to resist dogma (which is similar to the crap detector Postman describes). This, of course, assumes that the child is still curious, which as we both know, is quite often not the case after many years of school.
My online sparring partner, Michael K. Barber, is always on the cutting edge and, once again, he has alerted me to the latest trend in his blog, Virtual School Meanderings.
His latest post references an academic article which demonstrates, in spades, the potential dangers of allowing Hi Tech Mastery to crowd out ideas in the realm of education.
Alison Ruth’s “Chalkface, interface, screenface: moving the metaphor of teaching towards the nexus of teaching and learning” (Research in Learning Technology, April 2012) is a near perfect example of its excesses:
http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/17187/html
Chalkface and Interface are definitely now OUT, and Screenface is IN as the next great thing in the lexicon of Hi Tech Talk.
With Screenface posing all the “new and fruitful questions,” who needs ideas?
Tweaking the Hi Techies is great fun — it brings them down from cyberspace:
This time Paul I am in agreement with you pretty much 100%. We also need to be aware of two other base motivations for the high tech facination among some in the education community. The profit motive and IT sales drives the industry to “over promise and under deliver”. As well as this, some right wing zealots such as Terry Moe and his friends promote technology in education as a means of privatization and union busting. When they say it out loud they cannot be surprised when those on the other side circle the wagons.
I am no Luddite. I blog myself, I promote “blogging” as a way for ceative writing students to ‘actualize’ the products of their writing.
Time and common sense will separate the good tech ideas from the bad tech ideas.
Education has been burned too many times
A clarification if you please Doug. I have visited your site and it is not a blog. You welcome no dialogue or exchange of ideas based on your writings.You participate on other people’s blog maybe but you yourself do not blog..that would make you a blogger (owner of a blog). Terminology matters.
Spent much of the past three months in classrooms watching teachers and student teachers using tech- mostly powerpoints and youtiube. I am also co-ordinating a project on the use of tech in history and social science classes.
Have to agree with Paul in the main; namely,
– use does not mean wise use; too much swallowing info does not lead to nutrition through chewing and digesting it
– quantity of data does not mean quality- Postman was right
– direct links to student achievement through tech are weak, except there is an emerging consensus that for adaptive instruction for some special needs students it is a benefit
– there are pockets of examples of amazing learning, but these are fragmented and most busy teachers in schools have little time to digest the new stuff; instead, the tech is used to do the old things more or less the same way. For example, if you tweet about nothing in particular and do not build on the ideas presented . . . show a few dozen powerpoint slides, read them at the students, with no interaction or even some probing questions for class discussion . . . .
It seems from my spot, manty want to redesign education to accomodate IT rather than designing IT to suit the education system.
One area where I believe social media may be effective is in cutting down on the costs of real-time and abundant meetings by school administrations, boards, and committees of same, including governments. It might just give trustees an impetus to get back to taking back their local advocacy of their schools. I speak of course of Ontario where the focus by trustees on their local schools has been blurred terribly.
Today, I heard on the radio, the chair of the school boards association said, The IT train is leaving, with the students on board, but the train is leaving the education system behind. The technology is here and the education system has not learn how to adapt themselves.
Doug is correct, when he speaks about the motivations that lies behind technology, but is unwilling to see all facets of the motivations. It is why when I hear, words such as Doug’s – ” many want to redesign education to accomodate IT rather than designing IT to suit the education system.”, I cringed.
It should be words to this effect, the education system should be willing to adapt to IT that is the best fit for the education of children. Whether twitter should be adapted is not the question, but if twitter should be one of the tools for the classroom. In my opinion, I can’t see the point of twitter in the classroom, but I do see benefits of twitter and other social media concerning my child’s improvement in writing. Using the tools of IT elicits skills that are transferable to actual learning. Real learning, that takes place outside of the classroom, that would not normally take place under the old ways to communicate. In the last 3 days, and by pure coincidence, three discussions took place with my 16 year old, the old fashion way concerning the concerning the tweets and other social media conversations taking place on her accounts. Mind you, she was the one that engaged me, while she debated with others on twitter and other social media on the merits of what they all thought as new information. Information, that many would take as the truth, but in fact was opinion turning into fact and always an angle.
Note to the public education system: The content of information matters, but what matters more, the skills needed to determine if the information represents the truth. Students also need to develop a crap detector, because there is too many blind allies, dead end roads, and traps on the information highway.
That said, personally IT should be seen as tools, and not as the next magical cure for students’ learning. I follow some of the links that have been listed in the posts, and my biggest beef, many of the articles describes IT and its technology in metaphorically terms, with a dash of mystique and metaphysics. Below an article by a teacher entitled – Twitter in the Classroom
The description of an experience.
“Thus lies my need to introduce twitter in the classroom.
What is twitter?
Twitter is a micro-blogging service created to answer the question “What are you doing?” It is much more than just answering the question “What are you doing?” It is a way of establishing relationships which enables us to exchange links, share interests, spread news, chat, and also market business.
(Twitter User Guide)
How and why do I use this service in class?
Because I find it to be an interesting and feasible way to develop literacy. The possibility of interacting with other people, other educators, other schools, makes it more exciting; we are always expecting other people to share their experiences with us, which, at the same time, leads to students looking forward to these short periods of time in which we “speak, tell, invite, greet, etc”.
Click to access twitter-classroom.pdf
Personally, I see little benefit for kindergarten students as a tool for teaching, but I see the worth of twitter and other social media as a tool for communicating. Hence our local high school, communicates through twitter and other social media including the old fashion way of a telephone, paper communication (although far less of it today), that is directed at students and parents. Next year, the parents and students can look forward to following their children’s grades or the students themselves, in real time, instead of waiting for the report card. No doubt, the school is prepared for the many phone calls from parents wondering about the lower grades on tests and assignments, to which is news to them. Or the students who have become accustomed to not showing their parents some if not all tests that have low grades. will have to change their ways, if their parents are being informed in real time.
Why put up a mystique label on information describing IT more than the total sum of IT, and which the sum is tools? It is how IT is used in the education of children, and the benefits that are derive from it. When I purchased the new i-phone for my 16 year old, I never fully appreciated the benefits of the i-phone, and how the benefits have improved learning for my 16 year old in very unexpected ways.
Take for example Siri and the commercials. Very true, Siri keeps my 16 year old on track, reminding her of assignments and more than that Siri has become part of her conversations except Siri is not real, but has good advice. Everyday she asks Siri, if Siri loves her, and everyday Siri ignores the question, and speaks about the love she should have for other people. And is always a new response, to her question.
. John Malkovich is the latest celebrity to have a conversation with Siri
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1203170–new-apple-iphone-siri-ad-stars-john-malkovich
On the Apple site –
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html
Two weeks ago, Siri help to navigate, to which my 16 year old had no idea it could, and the knowledge of maps of the local rural outports. Neat eh?
The way IT is being used and introduced in today’s schools actual does crowd out the big ideas of education. After all, should it not be the measure if IT and its technology to the benefits of the user, whether teacher or students? IT at the end of the day are tools, no matter how much one thinks that IT goes beyond tools. The big ideas of education remains, no matter what the IT techies tries to move away from the big ideas of education.
I leave with one that has profit big time in the public education systems across Canada. I only question it, because in my opinion they don’t live up to their hype, but Apple does.
http://www.desire2learn.com/
” We help over 8 million people discover what is possible through our innovative learning solutions. Our team of talented, creative, and passionate employees is dedicated to helping transform the learning experience and creating a world where everyone has the opportunity to excel. We are focused on breaking down the barriers to learning and creating a more personalized experience that engages, inspires, and enables people to achieve their potential.”
All hype, with the necessity of having to account for the real outcomes of the users based on the hype.
All you need to do is make teachers aware of what exists and leave it at that. Those who ‘demand’ more IT in the classroom or ‘demand’ that every student have one on-line course are engaged in IT pushing, like drug pushing or high pressure sales rather than a nice long slow sure footed evolution in the technology direction.
As many have said before me. it over promises and under delivers at least to date.
The nations that are doing well are not doing well due to technology.
blog
[blawg, blog] Show IPA noun, verb, blogged, blog·ging.
noun
1.
a Web site containing the writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other Web sites.
JTC
The definition of a blog is a website on which an individual writer or groups of writers express opinions. The is nothing in the definition on the need for responce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Indeed, words are important JTC. Not that hard to do the research on what a blog is before you sound off.
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American educator Joanne Jacobs is, once again, pointing us in the right direction and may help to get us back on track.
Her post, Why Twitter is not a good teaching tool, (May 30, 2012) deserves to be cross-posted here:
“Once a “cool teacher” who advocated teaching with social media, Paul Barnwell now thinks Twitter and Facebook Are Not Good Instructional Tools.
Consider this excerpt from Barnwell, Education Week:
“While summarizing is a real skill, do we really want students to further fragment their thoughts and attention in this age of incessant digital distraction and stimuli with 140-character blurbs? Do we want students to spend even more time in front of a screen, bypassing opportunities to converse and collaborate face-to-face?
Web applications and social media tools may engage students at first, but the wow wears off quickly, Barnwell writes. Teachers waste time on gimmicks. Students “become dependent on technology that requires too many templates, cheapens thinking, or relies on flashy graphics and movement.”
The “net generation” isn’t truly tech savvy, he adds, citing a report by the Economic & Social Research Council, which interviewed British college students. They “use Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, most often as distractions from their studies rather than learning tools.”
Here is the core of Barnwell’s argument:
Do many students you interact with know how to do much more than Tweet, post to Facebook, or browse YouTube? Email is antiquated to students; after all, many kids are so used to fragmenting their thoughts that writing a substantial email is drudgery. Twitter is all the rage for teenagers and is a constant source and depository of mindless banter and instant gratification. Being tech savvy should include the ability to synthesize ideas and media forms, and create something original.
Barnwell is no technophobe: He teaches a digital media and storytelling course at a Kentucky high school, teaching students to use technology to create “photo essays, audio slideshows, and short documentaries.” (Joanne Jacobs, http://www.jonnnejacobs.com)
Comment:
Now this is worth discussing.
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Teacher Paul Barnwell was once a leading advocate of using Social Media with students in the classroom. As an innovative teacher, he took the plunge, implementing Polling Everywhere with his students. Today, he’s shunning the use of Smartphones, Twitter and Facebook in his classes:
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/05/30/fp_barnwell.html?tkn=ZLTF14uOnOqjuk5WTZXv%2BGtuCVImonvzJ8Hc&cmp=ENL-TU-NEWS1
His Education Week Teacher post (May 30, 2012) provides a cautionary tale. Such advances are illusory if, when the novelty wears off, they prove distracting or impede deeper thinking.
Exactly Paul. They are useful in that they speed up lessons, kids use cell phone as a dictionary, calculator, web surf “everybody google a picture of Stalin” as a chalk and talk lesson goes a certain direction., Kids power point seminars are far more polished and professional,
Im far from anti-IT but it is also far from being a panacea at the same time. It is one more tool in the tool kit of education and it can be used and also abused.
A recent ConnectedEd Canada Conference at the Calgary Science School (May 25-27, 2012) demonstrates, once again, that the Ed Tech enthusiasts are drawn far more to the process of learning than to ideas or the substance of learning.
http://connectedcanada.org/
You can also follow the Ed Techies at hashtag #connectedEdca
It is all about them, and ‘look at me’ attention getters,, but lack the beef. Where is the beef?
One involved with Connected Ed Canada – on his blog page
” I’m talking about the real deal – the imaginatively-driven, transdisciplinary, hard core, yet practically-relevant mindsets and toolsets our youthful people require in order to take on and change the world. The kind that leads to happier lives for them as individuals, no matter what field they might work in, and, over time, to increased productivity for our cities, province and country. And I believe that with the right tools and approach, the right mindset and the right network, anyone can learn to innovate. (Just checkout the DIY Innovation ToolkitTM if you don’t believe me).”
http://theinnographer.com/about/
Or this one – “The problem? Our current education system. This past weekend I had the privilege of participating in ConnectEd Canada, held at Calgary Science School, a school built entirely on inquiry. I was able to spend time observing the classes in session, and what I saw amazed me. An entire student body deeply engaged in learning, doing work that mattered, and articulate and aware of the process and their learning. How often does that happen? Not often enough, and that’s the problem.”
http://shelleywright.wordpress.com/
Rather ironic the latter does not mentioned the school in question, is a charter school of the public kind, that has a waiting list, like the other charter schools in Calgary.and than goes on waxing about why the ordinary public schools do not have students that are deeply engaged in learning.
http://css.l8ndev.com/?page_id=657
Or in the link that Paul posted – “If you are looking for the answer to education reform, it does not lie in any type of pedagogy or technology. It lies within people. People that want to make a difference in the lives of children. People that know if schools need to get better, we as individuals need to get better. As evidenced this weekend, this is not only educators, but it is also students, parents, and citizens who care about the future of our kids and know that improving school means improving so much more in our world.”
Rather hard to improve school to improve the world, when pedagogy and technology does not matter. It matters a great deal, in the real world, and it matters even more when the practices, policies and technology shuts the future doors of students long before students are able to decide where there future lies.
Good questions, but badly put as as closed questions. If we take them rhetorically, then we have a useful caution: ask yourself if you are spending too much with How? and not enought with Why? But let’s be aware that conceivably I might choose to spend more effort on How? even at the expense of Why? because I believe it will give me greater payoff whe I do get to the Why? in the end.
But after that, there’s not much to elaborate on. It’s a fallacy to take what may be generally true and think it holds true locally. It’s a judgement error to think that what is good for one school or district is necessarily good for your own. Finally, it’s a sign of cultural inertia that we think we need to make comperhensive statements about edcuation. (Spoken in full awareness of the irony of that statement.) The future of schools is hyper-local, IMHO. (If we think personalization of learning is good for individual students can we not also think perosnalization fro schools, so to speak, is also good?) So, the only possible way to answer the questions is to frame them in terms of ones own experience. We might compare notes then, but I doubt we can pull out anything that will be globally useful.
On Brad’s profile page – “Brad is fascinated with web technologies and their influence in reshaping education. As an Apple Distinguished Educator and avid blogger and Tweeter, he’s consulted at individual schools and has been ask to speak on developing best practices in this field to the Canadian Association of Independent Schools, the Independent Schools Association of British Columbia, and Alan November’s prestigious Building Learning Communities conference in Boston. He has also worked as an associate with November Learning facilitating professional development workshops in technology.
Nevertheless, Brad maintains a healthy skepticism towards web technology and is a little old-fashioned in his sentiments: he likes Homer and Milton; he think Greek and Latin are fine things to know; and, were it not for the squeaks, he would prefer a chalkboard to his Mac. Unless technology lets him do something he couldn’t otherwise do with a stick in the sand, doesn’t see much sense it.”
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/bradoc
As a parent, I know you may not be accustomed to having parents of ordinary means respond to you, especially when the students that you have worked with, have parents that can afford the $79,000 in tuition fees in your former place of employment, and your present employment, where tuition fees run from $6,860 to $18,230.
http://thinkglobalschool.org/about/what-is-tgs/
http://www.mulgrave.com/admissions/financial-information/index.aspx
I have nothing against your employment, nor that they are private school. I too have thought many times over the years, to have my children go to private schools, but I never did take action, because of money constraints.
That said, Brad, you write – “But after that, there’s not much to elaborate on. It’s a fallacy to take what may be generally true and think it holds true locally. It’s a judgement error to think that what is good for one school or district is necessarily good for your own. Finally, it’s a sign of cultural inertia that we think we need to make comprehensive statements about edcuation. (Spoken in full awareness of the irony of that statement.) The future of schools is hyper-local, IMHO. (If we think personalization of learning is good for individual students can we not also think personalization for schools, so to speak, is also good?) So, the only possible way to answer the questions is to frame them in terms of ones own experience. We might compare notes then, but I doubt we can pull out anything that will be globally useful.”
Brad, don’t you think living in the world of private schools, educators have a very narrow perspective, that tend to make sweeping statements in education based on the private school education model? Well, I do especially at the close of your post, the only way to answer the questions is to frame them in terms of one’s experience.
Paul’s questions are relevant in the public education system.
” Is Social Media a help or a hindrance to improving the quality of education in schools? Is introducing the learning tools crowding out important ideas associated with education reform or, pedagogy, or methodology in education? Is it a distraction rather than a means for transformation? In short, have Big Ideas gotten lost in the scramble? ”
Relevant, since the public education model has morphed into a big centralized beast, where decisions within are often made on one’s personal experience, often at the expense of the students’ education. Private schools has the luxury of waxing about schools and their future in the world of hyper-local. environments. I had to look up the meaning of hyper-local, and there is links below, if anyone cares to look at it.
http://www.hyperlocal.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlocal
http://mashable.com/follow/topics/hyperlocal/
The issue is not about hyper-local environments, but the technology, its devices, the software and the knowledge/information networks that can be access 24/7, 7 days a week. Social media being one of them, and its technology has created personal connections locally, nationally and internationally. Do they have a place in the public education system? Yes, but how should they be used, and it is in the ‘how’ that is under dispute in the public education system. Personally, social media in schools should be used as communication tools, and not as the active ingredient in classroom work. Face to face encounters in the classroom, creates the collaboration that educators always seems to pipe about, compared to the social media tools. Than again, I have seen my youngest child, using the social media tools at home, helping and getting help for homework and online studying jams. I have even seen her tutoring other students on facebook in physics and other related math related subjects, without ever picking the old land-base phone, or going to their place. Last night, my 16 year old and I sat down on my old desktop, to edited her final draft on her research paper. No black ink, and she said, “No problem, sent it to my e-mail address, and I will access the research paper at the school’s office computer, and get them to print it off. Nice, no need to have a flash drive, and no expenditures in buying ink. I can delay the purchase once again.
So, isn’t Paul’s questions more relevant, than what Brad suggested, it rests on personal experience. I can remember a time, when the local school heavily regulated the uses of technology at school, but now it is in the ‘how’ to take full advantage and benefits of the technology based on the students’ best interests and the school. If it was left up to personal experience, many of a school would still be using the old chalk board, and not the smart boards. ,
Old chalk boards are still used every day to great effect. Every time there is a new technology or teaching method the education community seems to divide very quickly between for example in this case, technophobes and tech zealots.
What on Earth is wrong with a slow, well researched, methodical roll out of technology over the next few years so the benefits are accrued to the system and the liabilities restricted?
I have seen so many “bandwagons” go into the ditch over the years. Nothing wrong with many new technologies. I am no Luddite. When I retired I could have gone back to NOW Magazine to write, circulation 100 000 but decided a blog (yes JTC a blog) was a better idea. It was the future of journalism such as The Huffington Post, Daily Beast etc.
No reason to panic or rush anything.
Why doesn’t the schools used the social media tools as a way to enhance communication and community?
In an article meant for charities – “Is Social Media Right for Your Organization?”
http://www2.guidestar.org/rxa/news/articles/2012/is-social-media-right-for-your-organization.aspx?hq_e=el&hq_m=1666536&hq_l=14&hq_v=643645748f
Why not facebook, and let it all hang out?
It would promote talk on things that are never talked about because there isn’t any transparency and openness on the school officials. A tendency to hush, rather than to invite open discussion on the day to day operations of a school.
As it would, encourage discussion on how things can be improve – a portal of many pathways leading to two-way conversations. Much like the facebook accounts of teenagers, or like my 16 year old and anyone in the community are managed their facebook accounts with adept and ability, without spending a great deal of time in managing their facebook accounts. My 16 year old, used facebook to counter the misconceptions of ferrets being part of the rodent family.
Why not schools? Beside a hidden bonus, might be the former students of the past, willing to donate a dollar or two, or much more in helping their former schools. .
From Flypaper A former luddite, like Doug
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/2012/confessions-of-a-former-luddite.html#body
Not exactly about social media, but it is still on technology.
Who are you calling a Luddite, Nancy? (Edited)
Doug, you mentioned luddite in your second last post… but I should have quoted you as writing “I am not a luddite.” Sorry for that one.
And Doug, not only (The Fordham Institute E-Letter) Flypaper, but quite a few education blogs are hooking up with outside experts, engaging them in discussions on technology issues.
And check out the parents’ blogs of note – just the reverse – they are engaging with the people in the education field.
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