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| Vintage Social Media |
I like to think that I am not "that" old. I have only been teaching for thirteen years. I have a seven year old son, and with spending so much time in middle school, I keep pretty current with music, pop culture and what's new and current. I use technology, have several social media accounts and try to integrate technology into my classroom successfully. But then my seven year old loses a tooth, or our cat has kittens and then I realize how the times have changed. Instead of wanting to call and tell someone or just enjoy the moment, what does he say? "Hey, take a picture and put it on facebook, you can tag (fill in his friend's parent's names here)" then I know we "aren't in Kansas anymore." My seven year old will never remember a world without social media. He loves seeing his friends and their vacations, lost teeth, awards, pets and other things, and for now he sees no negative. I remember my first experiences with online interaction, in college, with dial up internet service via AOL instant messenger. It was so exciting sitting waiting for that dial-up process to complete, and, if you were really lucky you got to hear the "
you've got mail" when it was complete. When I started teaching high school, students were already on MySpace. So the students we teach now are likely much like my seven year old in that social media has always been a part of their reality. It is, however, our responsibility as educators to support students as they learn digital citizenship. (Hicks, 2013, p.138) As I have discussed in my earlier blog post "
when being born digital isn't enough" we must teach our students to be responsible when it comes to social media and the internet in general. This leads me to the topic of this blog post. This is a screenshot of a tweet that was retweeted by a technology specialist I follow from another system. It caught my attention because it is a reference to the old "teach a man to fish" proverb.
I think that this is completely true for our time, in our age, in our classrooms and especially true with social media. We are teaching students who have access to a mass of information at their fingertips 24/7. Finding information is not a problem. We have to teach them how to use these tools responsibly, how to think critically, how to be skeptical of information sources they find online and also to be aware of what they are putting out there for others to see. When looking at this tweet using the MAPS heuristic I see the following:
The Mode: The mode here could be considered persuasive or argumentative, the author is clearly making a point and strongly encouraging a digital citizenship approach versus a censorship approach.
The Media: The media here is twitter, so the post had to be brief, I like that the actual tweet summed up the photo perfectly by emphasizing the importance of digital citizenship.
The Audience: The audience here is broad as the author has over 27,000 followers but he is a educational technology specialist, so most of his posts relate to technology in education and is geared toward that.
The Purpose: The purpose of this tweet I most likely would be to start conversation and encourage teachers to teach digital citizenship, not locking down the internet so that it is barely useable. I would think it did that by the number of retweets and favorites.
The Situation: The situation here I am unsure of, there could have been a link to further educational resources on digital citizenship or further information, but with twitter, most posts are quick, brief, overviews, like this one.
Overall, I believe as teachers, we have to follow this approach with our students. Our students are going to use social media, we use social media, why not use it in a positive way for both? I have found Google Classroom to be very useful with my students already. Our school PTO has used facebook as a very successful communication tool. I have found Google+ and twitter to both be endless sources of technology information and classroom ideas. Lastly, this article I found retweeted by an administrator in another system fits with the above tweeted graphic perfectly.
"Don't Lock it Down" This also reiterates what Hicks (2013)says in the chapter 2 (about our students) that "we can help them understand how, when and why digital writing matters, both for them as individuals, and for their families and communities.
Resources
Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Lehmann, C. (2015, April 3). Don't Lock it Down. Retrieved April 15, 2015, from http://www.techlearning.com/blogentry/9157#.VSgAZnCdWkA.twitter
On p. 140 of the text, Hicks states that "Social media is the telephone for this generation of teens (and, increasingly, adults)." You are correct that our students are having a much different experience in socialization. When I was their age, it was the telephone. How often did I take our phone, with its looonnnnnggg cord with me into a darkened corner and converse for forever with friends? Not as often as I would have liked since I had siblings and we were on a party line with a family that had 10 kids living there! My students do NOT have to wait until their friend is home or has permission to talk on the phone. Now, communication is instant, 24/7, and all-consuming. I feel the pressure to ensure that my students are also aware of the dangers and pitfalls of frivolous posts. Unlike phone calls, these words linger...
ReplyDeleteHicks says "our main goal is to help students become intentional" (p. 140). Blocking or shying away from social media will create a language gap, as well as an intentionality gap between social interactions and education. We need to teach students to be responsible communicators in every aspect, especially the ones most frequently used by them.
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