Just for the record, I love this quote by Michael Wesch:
We use social media in the classroom not because our students use it, but because we are afraid that social media might be using them – that they are using social media blindly, without recognition of the new challenges and opportunities they might create.
Emphasis on the opportunities. I think this is a key part of making the case to teachers and schools as to why we absolutely need to consider these technologies and make them a part of our own practice. But the other key here is that we as educators cannot use social media blindly here either. Whether we think it’s a game changer or not, we have to understand how our kids could experience the world if they use these technologies well.
In what way are you afraid that “social media is using them?”
Well, Neil’s link below is one good example. And semantically, we’re obviously talking about the people who use the media for purposes other than simply sharing information or making connections, ways that take advantage of the lack of deep reading skills/literacies that we’ve gone back and forth about for quite some time now.
Perhaps it is a bit of social media using kids, and kids not understanding how to use social media for more than just exchanging comments with their friends. I recently introduced diigo into my classroom of IT 12th graders. Sure – they knew what bookmarks were.. and discussion.. and they frequently shared bookmarks. But they had never really used diigo. Now they use it for research for their senior projects, other educational things, interviewing tips, and more. They are using it way more than I had originally thought they would, and they are learning, discussing, and networking. All it took was for me to show them HOW it could be applied to the curriculum they are learning
So instead of thinking of adding something to our curriculum, we should continue thinking of teaching how to think critically about anything … media literacy … that McLuhan idea that the medium is the message and whoever can control the medium – in this case, the technology – can control the message …
Yes. While I think there are some things we have to add here (i.e. the creation of online relationships and networks) I think for the most part that this is a new lens that we have to use to determine how we deliver curriculum. There is no question I don’t think that when the traditional editors are removed from the process, as is happening now, the demands on readers to do their own filtering and vetting increase by a huge amount. We need to look at our curriculum through that lens.
@Tom: How about this for starters: There’s something going down on Facebook. Pay attention.?
Wow…thanks for that link, Neil. Perfect example.
Part of being involved in social media for educators is being aware of what’s going on in the lives of the students beyond the classroom; of listening and responding to their concerns, dare I say it, like being good at customer service in some ways. That doesn’t mean giving in to every whine or complaint, but it does mean maybe addressing the most common ones. And this may be a less threatening way to build relationships between faculty, staff and students, which helps create a stronger community- and thats a good thing for everyone concerned.
Juanita nails it – it’s all about arming our students with the critical skills to filter all media. This is why the dichotomy some critics currently offer between book reading and online reading is a false one. It is not an either-or proposition. Students need the critical grokking skills that work in any medium – books as well as social media as well as film as well as…- AND those specific to each medium.
I think we need to teach our students media literacy so they don’t get taken advantage of; Neil Winton’s link is the tip of the iceberg. Why do our students believe everything they read online? What is it about the medium that makes it seem so trustworthy?
Fear mongering? That’s not right either.
Educators should use whatever medium that works. Social or otherwise, this is a mechanism. (Think: A car can be a 4,000 pound weapon.) It is not something that 1) we should fear and 2) we should teach our children to fear. We don’t teach our children how to drive because we fear cars. We teach them how to drive because we want them to drive properly… and defensively, indepedent on how others drive. Our responsibilities should be to teach them how to use social media (or anything that comes along in the future) because it is the right thing to do, not because we fear it (or that it is “using” them).
Remember, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.
Reading the quote by Michael Wesch reminds me of the hype in theaters about subliminal seduction. That image of hypnotizing people fails to escape my mind. Thanks for the image.
What a splendid quotation for discussion purposes. Well chosen, Will.
It really cuts in several ways, doesn’t it?
One: the fear sense, implied by “using”, as in “taking advantage of.” This leads us to teach these tools in order to help our students better survive a tricky world. Helping them not get victimized, as Janice notes. A defensive literacy. This includes levels of defense, from watching out for Twitterphishies to telling students to beware the social Web.
Literary spirit: Melville, The Confidence-Man.
Two: the social, cooperative sense, suggested by “opportunity” and “social.” Students are already engaged in contributing to this world. We can help them contribute more effectively. A digital citizenship literacy.
Literary spirit: Kropotkin, Mutual Aid.
Three: a developmental sense, rather than an introductory one. We’re helping students get better at something they already do. Social Media 205, not 101. There are deeper levels to this, too, like the nearly psychoanalytic one of making students reflect on something they do not so reflectively. Or, reaching further back, to Soctates’ idea of anemnesis, unforgetting knowledge already acquired – they’re learning in the social Web; we have to make sure that schooling doesn’t forget it for them.
Literary spirit: Plato, “Allegory of the Cave.”