Leading Learning Conference :: Forum

Hi everyone.

At LL2007 I'll be hosting a session centered around social networking and how it can be used to support teacher professional learning. I'll also be covering about this Commun-IT.org site and a bit of the background behind it. If you are interested, there are 2 great articles written recently that you may want to check out:

Wired Magazine article "Don't Tell Your Parents: Schools Embrace MySpace": http://www.wired.com/culture/education/news/2007/04/myspacef

Christopher Sessums blog: (disclaimer - Christopher will also be a guest in Commun-IT's first web conference to be held May 10th)

I'm curious about conference attendees experiences with online communities/social  networks...

1. Which online communities are you a member of? (if any)
2. do you participate in online communities that aren't education related? (e.g. hobbies/interests)
3. have your experiences with online courses for teachers (e.g. ABQs) had a true sense of "community" to them?

I thought that this topic might be appropriate to this discussion and might also add to the conversations at Leading Learning.

 I'm wondering if anyone had opinions about the meeting on May 11th regarding Facebook.  I heard it on CBC Radio One on the way home today.  Kathleen Wynne had announced that the Ministry was taking a closer look at Facebook, and is bringing in students from around the province for a discussion on social networking web sites. 

This might also be related to the amendment of the safe schools act where students could be suspended for out of school activities that effect the school climate.  It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall on May 11th, would love to hear how freedom of speech plays into this, as well as students being digital natives vs digital immigrant argument.

Opinions?

We just had a very good discussion here in Halton amongst all our secondary school IT contacts around not just social networking sites but many other technologies (e.g., cell phones) and there is general agreement that:

- we should not be 'knee-jerk' banning any particular technologies (like banning forks!);
- our AUG already addresses online sending/receiving in general, all of these fall into that and there is no need to list each new one as "ok" or "not".

I will be very interested to participate in your session Tim, I think some social networking concepts like voting and profile-matching are underutilized (scratch that-- non-utilized) in education and perhaps could be to great effect.

I have been reading a few articles and posts that might be of interest to others on this topic and was thinking of your session again.

1. Networks, Connections and Community: Learning with Social Software

2.  Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview Pew Internet Survey
3. Read, Write, Mix, Rip, and… Burn, Baby, Burn: Notes on How Social Media Affects Conventional Teaching and Learning Practices
4. Networks, Connections and Community: Learning with Social Software

I also heard the Minister on CBC radio. My thoughts throughout the interview kept turning towards the fact that not only do most adults (including teachers) not have any experience, or knowledge of social networking, but after the recent news stories they will probably have a very negative attitude towards them. How can we convince people, and specifically teachers, of the positive aspects of these tools? I like Quentin's argument in the Globe and Mail article below about parents giving advice to kids on Social Networking being like giving advice on driving a car if you don't drive yourself!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070430.wlsextalk01/BNStory/lifeFamily/

There is an interestingdebate going on around the web over this series of recent events:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2029

Yet another example of why a better understanding of web 2.0 and social networkiing is critical for teachers (and university administration it would seem).

Thoughts? 

Funny enough Urs that was the only accurate quote that the reporter had got from me.

 This was out of whack:

Mr. D'Souza regularly organizes resource evenings for parents at his school so they can learn about the Internet sites kids visit. “At the last one, two people showed up,” he said. “I set up 100 seats.”

I don't work in one school but many across the school board.  I don't organize the Parent evenings, but our team is invited to present about Internet Safety by school administration, CSAC's etc.  Rob De Lorenzo, Tony Greco and Laila Sisca (our cooordinator) have also presented at these events and we present together.  We do get very low turnouts, with a handful of parents.  The last event that Tony and Rob did, there were two people - the school principal and one parent.  And I have no idea where she got the quote "I set up 100 seats."  Laila was there at the time of the interview and didn't hear the same information that she did. 

The people that make up our department work hard and we work as a team, Internet Safety is not a one person thing. At least the article had a comments section where I tried to set the record straight.

Suzanne

Re: Suzanne's question - I have found that some students are quite proud of their web presence... because at their young ages it hasn't negatively impacted them. Their friends find it "oh so cool".... and they are intentionally pushing the limits. It makes me sound like the standard parental authority when I ask them -"Would your mother be proud of you if she saw this?" And of course that thought is devastating to them.... and they then proceed to carry on with their inappropriate web content. How do you counter a serious lack of maturity and insight? I tried telling them what could easily happen because of their site... the jury is still out on the results of those conversations.

Should we take a page from health and sex ed - and build a curriculum that first, corrects all of the misinformation out there and then supplies the full and accurate story, in a way that is direct and understandable? It doesn't stop unwanted pregnancies but it certainly helps reduce them. Might this approach apply to our web situation?

This is a really interesting paper on:

Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?

danah boyd is a PhD candidate in the School of Information at University of California, Berkeley and a fellow at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg Center for Communications.

The Economist is running an online debate about the role of social networks in education. Some interesting points - but definitely worth checking out.

 via http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/01/not-social-networks-but-learnin

As a comfortable computer user but definitely not a person who has become involved in social networking that much my view is essentially as an outsider I guess. However I see the trend as the latest part of that delicate human balance between a desire for community and a desire to be a unique person. It seems to address both very well.

You can have many friends - indeed you seem to be able to have almost as many as you want. Although it does bring up the issue of what a friend is. How does that compare with our physical world which is limited by geography and time? The Internet has made both transparent and students are loving it.

Then again nobody knows you're a dog on the Internet! You are not judged by your looks, academic labels, you can actually be a different "actor", (the ultimate Shakespeare quote - all the world's a stage?) you can be something you dreamed of, you can be creative. It feeds creativity in a much wider way?

I see a different structure of organization within SN - not based on the traditional pyramid but more on a geodesic sphere model. In such a structure there is no "leader" - everyone is equal; it is a network where you are at the centre of your own world. Ironically the geodesic sphere is built on two engineering concepts that have other meanings - tension and integrity. I am seeing this model in Open Source especially.

A colleague of mine sees the traditional model as BAH - Bureaucratic Administrative Hierarchy. Perhaps the geodesic SN model can be seen as FUN - Friendly Uncontrolled Network? That could explain why SN is attractive. We have lived and work in BAH but they can see there is another way - FUN. Maybe they are thinking not outside the box but outside the old structure?

Just some fun thoughts - I hope!