danah boyd delivered a talk for Microsoft recently with the title “Social Media is Here to Stay,” and I’d classify it as must reading for educators wanting to get nudged a little further down the path to rethinking classrooms. I just love the matter of fact way she describes what has happened in terms of kids’ uses of social media and what it all means for us. The whole thing is definitely worth the 10-15 minutes or so that it takes to read it, but let me cut to the chase with this snip:
Specific genres of social media may come and go, but these underlying properties are here to stay. We won’t turn the clock back on these. Social network sites may end up being a fad from the first decade of the 21st century, but new forms of technology will continue to leverage social network as we go forward. If we get away from thinking about the specific technologies and focus on the properties and dynamics, we can see how change is unfolding before our eyes. One of the key challenges is learning how to adapt to an environment in which these properties and dynamics play a key role. This is a systems problem. We are all implicated in it – as developers and policy makers, as parents and friends, as individuals and as citizens. Social media is here to stay. Now we just have to evolve with it.
A couple of things strike me here, not the least of which is the de-emphasis on the tools and a focus instead on the “properties and dynamics” or the “network effects” that they bring about. I think it’s safe to say that we have made huge inroads in getting people to use the tools. Last week at NCTIES about half of a roomful of people raised their hands when I asked how many of them taught at schools where kids are blogging somewhere in the curriculum. (It turned out it wasn’t happening with a lot of regularity, but still…) Where we still have a long way to go, however, is in truly understanding that stuff danah is talking about. And that’s the important part, because that’s what should be driving our decision making and pedagogy around using these technologies in the classroom. But as I’ve said many times before, that’s the hard part, because it really does involve some buy in on the part of teachers in terms of changing their own practice.
But there is another telling passage in this piece that really got my brain thinking. When talking about how kids don’t really use Twitter very much because it’s so much more of a public space, danah writes
Teens are much more motivated to talk only with their friends and they learned a harsh lesson with social network sites. Even if they are just trying to talk to their friends, those who hold power over them are going to access everything they wrote if it’s in public. While the ethos among teens is “public by default, private when necessary,” many are learning that it’s just not worth it to have a worrying mother obsess over every mood you seek to convey. This dynamic showcases how social factors are key to the adoption of new forms of social media.
It’s funny (not) how when I read that “those who hold power over them” part I immediately thought of schools and the aversion we have to kids creating in public, social spaces. Kids are being driven to become more private in a world where transparency and openness create huge learning opportunities for those that know what to do with them.
Make sure to read the five properties of social media and the three social dynamics that danah says have been “reconfigured” by social media. And then think about the idea that
All of this means that we’re forced to contend with a society in which things are being truly reconfigured. So what does this mean? As we are already starting to see, this creates all new questions about context and privacy, about our relationship to space and to the people around us.
Those are the questions that we have to be examining deeply for ourselves as educators. And right now, those are the questions that few schools really want to have any serious discussions about in terms of the implications on school culture and curriculum. As systems, we’re not even close to getting on the reconfiguration road.
Well, most of us aren’t, at least:
I wonder why public educators at large have not yet embraced social networking tools, being the next inseparable component of students’ lives, as something they should teach students to use responsibly. Over some 150-odd years we’ve taken it upon ourselves to teach manners, accepted behavior in a multiple of situations, appropriate cooperation and competition, safe driving practices, healthy eating habits (perhaps taught if not lived), safe lifestyle choices, responsible sexual behavior (more or less), how to appreciate diversity, and oh yeah, learning too. It goes without saying that we’ve done from stellar to downright horrific jobs at the above, but nonetheless those elements have all fallen under the purview of public educators. Why have we not yet decided among ourselves, system-wide, that’s time to teach responsible electronic tool use as well? Or are we waiting for the public to tell us that it’s our job before we take it up?
More and more I think it’s waiting for the public to give us permission, or at least that’s our perception. Thanks for the comment, James.
Perhaps we need to adopt the “ask forgiveness, not permission” approach and “just do it.” Seth Godin says in “Tribes” (and just about everything else he writes) that innovation happens from the bottom up, not the top down in the modern culture. And if (when?) there are repercussions to our activities (from union officials, school attorneys, school administrators et al), perhaps we need to react with force and passion, as if what was at stake was the First Amendment. Those who patrol these issues at the local level are most afraid of whichever group is going to cause the biggest stink, so it seems to me that the best tactic is to become the Pepe LePew of the educational computing scene!
James, I could not agree more. Instead of condoning social networks like twitter and facebook, we, teachers should grab the opportunity to extrapolate lessons like cultural acceptance and making informed decisions. Teachers must ask themselves what is it that students like so much about such websites and try to incorporate cultural awareness and teach their pupils netiquette and how to make use of everything in a positive fashion. Technology is just like any other innovation: you can use it, misuse it and abuse it.
Hi James, hi Manal,
Finally I could find someone on the same “wave”. Yes, social media is there, but should only be there in classrooms, when there is a real need for it. Let’s go back again, everything has to be linked to the main Learning Objectives of the curriculum.
We, as educators, still have to do a lot to teach the “digital natives” about cultural issues, to be sensetive and alter, when using the social networking tools. Not much has been done in that aspect until now.
I really enjoyed reading the talk that Danah gave. Thank you for passing it on.
Will, I was just going to post about my experience with Facebook at my elementary school. Yes, folks, it’s here.
A couple of days ago I stumbled on a FB group set up when our school was looking at being closed a few months ago. 131 members of that group. Nobody over 25, and many had been in my third grade classroom in days of yore. I checked out a few profiles and was amazed. I joined the group, so they’d have a grandpa figure 🙂 Wonder what that does to group dynamics?
I looked further and found lots of parents from my school on FB, lots with daughters (many more than sons, go speculate…) Keeping track of things? You bet. Interested in networking on their own? Also, you bet.
So I set up an official group for my elementary school. So far, parents and staff members have joined. Will teen/twentysomething alumni join? No idea. But now I’m friending parents at my school. There are two staff members besides me on Facebook, but I must say, there is a lot of talk lately, so that’s a good thing…
So many questions and unknowns. I only know that we absolutely must embrace this latest turn in the road of social connectivity. Thanks for pushing – Mark
Hey Mark,
Very cool to hear this, and I’m sure you are not alone. I need to dig around more into these groups in Facebook…I might be surprised at what I find. Glad to hear you are making inroads at your school. Looking forward to the post.
Will,
Here’s my problem – as a high school teacher (in Ohio) I/we have been actively discouraged from participating in social networking. Union officials, school attorneys, administration – all have indicated in various ways that an online presence accessible by students is to be shunned. We were even encouraged once by a state union rep to remove our (school) email address from the district-hosted homework posting page so kids couldn’t email us! So what’s the point of the homework page?? Duh!
I know the majority of our students are online, and I agree that we can be positive role models for this activity. And I’d love to be able to post links and comments relating to class discussions and topics, as well as receive the same from my students. Unfortunately, I agree that it seems as if I need to wait for “public permission,” or acceptance, before I can do so.
I’m wondering why, however, we’re not allowed to use these tools for ourselves. What does that say about trust? Sad.
Chris’s tweets included at the end of the post (and danah’s talk) made me wonder…on some level, I think we all assume that young teachers fresh from college are going to help lead education towards responsible use of online tools.
But these young teachers established their online lives in high school and college. When their options are “remove those pictures of you holding a beer” or “create an entirely new set of accounts”, those young teachers will choose “don’t bring technology into the classroom”.
I too was interested in Chris’s tweets. “His private life” is led after he walks away from the computer, but our kids have always led almost their entire lives online. We are, I think, fundamentally different in that way and helping kids “to get” that distinction feels a lot like a generation gap, especially when trying to communicate the idea to adolescents.
As I read your post and the subsequent comments, I have no solutions — at least, none that are guaranteed to work universally.
However, I am struck with the notion that “the fields are white unto harvest” for true, authentic leadership to step forward, to assert bold actions that allow (yes, I thought carefully about using that particular word) a cascade of educators to follow.
Now….won’t it be very interesting to watch closely where that kind of leadership will come from? (pardon that grammatical error, but economy of words forced me to leave it that way!)
These conversations are front and center in our high school right now. As we navigate this new world together as a community, we are building it, understanding it, and challenging it.
In my opinion, it is less about the answer and more about a common ground within our community and that takes honest conversations and moments of being uncomfortable.
Our recent conversation will take place during our All School Workshop where everyone in the school comes together in the spirit of community, conversation, and learning.
Here is the link to our wiki that you might want to take a look at to see the structure for this conversation: http://gbnallschoolworkshop.wikispaces.com/Growing+Up+Digital
Good stuff here Will and all who commented. One point about Twitter and youth…of late, there has been an increase in the number of students at my school who are using twitter…I think this has to do with the number of celeb-types using it.
Like so many schools, we’re grappling with the should we/should we not question of teacher-student relationships on Facebook. Most schools are taking the approach of writing policy that bans such connections. I’m not a fan at all of policy that targets particular tools…I don’t know how Facebook could be singled out as most Web2.0 spaces have features that are highly social in nature. So if facebook as a space where teachers and students is blocked, then I would assume twitter, ning, blogger, voicethread and many other social learning tools would be banned as well. I hope some schools take the less popular approach, which is to really work hard to gain an understanding about the peer to peer learning that takes place using social software.
I take Chris Lehmann’s approach as well…anything I write/post/publish online is intended to be viewed by a multi-age audience that could involve young students, teachers, parents, etc.