marquee week 8

Wow, the Rheingold and Davidson readings from this past week generated some good, thought-provoking blog posts! Many of you did a nice job of thinking about the implications of the innovations and strategies being conveyed by the authors and the implications for practice in the places where you work. Here are just a few that resonated with me …

Zach found Howard Rheingold’s interview with Amy Burvall to be “compelling.” He identifies parallels between the heavy use of blogs in her class with that in ours; moreover, he was impressed with the way in which Twitter hashtags grew to play a dominant role in the course. For example, he found her use of Twitter to broadcast a “Question of the Week” to be an easy, low-risk way of familiarizing them with the platform and creating a powerful backchannel of conversation, especially for those students who might be more shy or reluctant to speak up in class. Zach also connects this successful experience with Twitter to one of his own in which he Tweeted about his interest in a book and how that sparked a message from the book’s author who then sent him a free copy of the book.

Shifting gears to the Davidson post, Dana called attention to Davidson’s suggestion about collaborating with other schools. She suggests this collaboration can be helpful in widening the vision of what is possible In terms of practical implementation. And because wikis are so versatile and extensible, they offer many ways for teachers to collaborate and share ideas (e.g., docs, images, videos, polls, chats, project pages). Dana’s post also reminded me of how wikis can create the potential for grass-roots change, where teachers can share their ideas and best practices through the wiki, which can then in turn be shared with other relevant stakeholders (e.g., administrators). Wikis can be easily shared and used to guide change in constructive, thoughtful ways.

Christina also appreciated the suggestions outlined in Davidson’s “Collaborative Guide” but at the same time, critically examined the feasibility of it. My question is, how do we get our communities to recognize and implement some of the things in the guide? . She conjectures that implementing some strategies might take years to be fully realized, especially in districts that don’t have the luxury of extensive resources. This suggests not only that these changes require patience and perseverance but also the exploration of alternatives such as grants and open source software. What options for grants are there? In what ways might Open Source Software meet our needs?

From another direction, Jason used the readings to candidly reflect on his own history of participation with social technologies. More specifically, he reflects on the tension between his skepticism of its overall value and relevance against the contrasting view of students who see social networks as “old hat” and who use it as a ” way to collaborate, a way to gather, a way to hang out.” Jason nicely points out that beyond training and professional development, there needs to be equal emphasis on modeling. If administrators want to see successful integration of tech in the classroom, then they also need to model appropriate uses and provide adequate support. The underlying point here is that fear of the technology is not a meaningful response. Instead, it’s better to think about in terms of affordances and constraints and how those fit within the local context of the classroom, school or learning environment.

Jason’s post, as well as others, have raised one of the recurrent issues regarding the use of social/participatory technologies in the classroom, namely issues related to Internet safety and privacy. For those of you who are interested in these questions, I’d highly recommend the blog posts below as good starting points:

  • danah boyd’s Three Conversations for Parents: Navigating networked publics – boyd encourages parents not to try and bar their kids from participating in social networking technologies, but to use it as an opportunity to engage in conversation about three important areas: “Public-ness,” Empathy,” and “Sex and Sexuality.”
  • Jason Schultz – Should we fear children accessing Facebook? – in a similar vein, Jason Schultz urges us to avoid knee-jerk reactions and develop appropriate uses in terms of building different types of digital literacies that contribute to a broader identity and role as a digital citizen
  • Aleks Krotoski – Reflexivity: Why we must choose to shape, not be shaped by technology – she advocates that we take a more active role learning more about the forces that shape these technologies and use that knowledge to shape our digital identity
  • In Scott McLeod’s 26 Internet safety talking points he rebuts many of the common fears or anxieties regarding the use of social technologies in the classroom such as “demonizing the technology” (e.g., Mobile phones, Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, blogs, Wikispaces, Google, and whatever other technologies you’re blocking are not inherently evil. Stop demonizing them and focus on people’s behavior, not the tools, particularly when it comes to making policy.)

If you haven’t had a chance to read any of the posts I’ve highlighted, I suggest taking a few moments to check them out and maybe make a comment or two. Keep up the good, thought-provoking analysis!