As I said earlier, I don’t have high hopes for this being the year that schools begin to embrace social software in systemic ways and that 2007 may pose more challenges to that thinking. Case in point a couple of items in the aggregator this morning. First, from Michael Stephens, it appears that Illinois is going after DOPA: The State Version. You know the drill…no social networking in libraries, schools, outhouses, etc. And this won’t be the last bill or the last state to try to put it through.
Second, Chris Lehmann points to an article in the New York Times yesterday titled “Teenagers Misbehaving, for All Online to Watch.” As you can imagine, it’s not a great advertisment for the transparency of the Web these days.
Most suburban teenagers, it seems, can rattle off a litany of the latest teens-gone-wild offerings as though they were the local multiplex listings: boys holding cellphones under the lunch table to photograph up girls’ skirts; an innocent kiss at a party posted out of context on an ex-boyfriend’s Web site; someone bursting in on friends who are in the bathroom or sleeping, drinking or smoking; students goading teachers into tantrums; assaulting homeless people.
Lovely.
Chris expresses his concerns about what this all means, and notes, accurately, I think, that the stakes are getting higher, and he says that schools have to play a bigger role in educating kids about how to make “smart, safe and ethical choices.” The more I turn this in my own brain the more I get to the fact that this is cultural. It’s societal. And those of us who have whatever limited enlightenment into the workings of the world about these matters need to do more to educate all of our constituents.
Before any of this is going to get better, more folks who don’t have any concept of learning in social networks need to at least be shown the possibilities. Whether they embrace them into their own practice is something different altogether.
Will –
I am surprised that there are not more comments on this post. Is it a matter of innovative education providing the legislative bodies of state government with meaningful classroom examples, or is it a matter of us, the educators promoting these tools, learning how to play the political game more effectively? Why are we trying to alter the course of the river, let us learn how to navigate this river and have it work in our favor.
I think back to the days of the Vietnam anti-war movement. Although there existed a minority of the population who spoke out against the war, there efforts were highly organized, highly visible, and their perceptions were highly effective in changing the political culture of our nation. Shouldn’t we as educators promoting these tools, look to become a highly organized and visible force in our political culture, using traditional modes of the media to form the base of an educational movement that marks 2007 as the “year it all changed”?
I recently watched the Dateline special this past Tuesday: To Catch a Predator. I love that series and believe that it serves the parents of our nation well, but doesn’t it possibly construct a false perception about the tools of social networking? Why don’t we attempt to piggy-back on the cultural awareness Dateline has created, and mobilize the talents of those educators who have embraced this technological path in education, and look to create a platform similar the NBC program, with a productive educational spin.
Will – Here’s the kind of positive story about educational use of social software – you are looking for.
http://learningismessy.com/blog/?p=196
Sorry – I meant to leave this comment left on my blog on my last comment:
AprilMJ Says:
You’ve made a convert. Being a district admin, I am initially cautious of new technologies that may tax an already overextended system… but you’ve proven that the cost is far outweighed by the benefits.
Our society thrives on the misbehaving. Our news centers more on the grotesque than the awareness of virtues. Turning on the television, one finds reality tv smacking us in the face.
teaching children to use the tools wisely and at appropriate times will expand their capabilities. I have a blog for school that will have linked 86 students in the communications academy together. I explained it is not a my space site. We examined all the methods of literacy students engage in daily. Then I pointed out that each has an underelying code of attitude and voice. they know I cannot control their antics on myspace, but they know the ethics of propely blogging – I made them link to the journalist code of ethics and blogging site. They made a complete acknowledgement of our purpose and mission. Man has many tools, some men abuse them while others do not. The tech tools of today should be embraced, harnessed and tapped into to assist our students with the world they face.
By the way, any chance you are speaking at Chautauqua Institution the last week in June? The theme is media and ethics. IF you are, I will arrive a week early to hear you!