Type in to Google: #NALSPD . Then click on "options" then click on "latest". You will see everyone on Twitter talking about this conference on Social Media. Or click here: http://www.google.com/search?q=%23nalspd&hl=en&safe=active&tbo=1&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS355US355&output=search&tbs=rltm:1&ei=Ym2aS4LAJ5KaMpCYxLoC&sa=X&oi=tool&resnum=1&ct=tlink&ved=0CBQQpwU
One of the biggest points made: "Social Media is not a fad. It is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate." So don't just take it from me, but our language is evolving. When we cut Social Media out of our schools, we cripple our students from being able to communicate with the rest of the world. And how does that change their experience in society when they leave our schools? How does that affect how they handle college and the workforce?
Prediction: In five years email will be dead. It already is for your students - just ask how many times they check email. Then ask how much they communicate on Social Media. Ask how much they talk on the phone to friends as opposed to how much they FaceBook each other.
How long will it take teachers and administrators to see that Textbooks are dead? That even PowerPoint slides are dead?
Currently we are facing two dilemmas in schools. Budget cuts, and Technology cuts by those who don't understand the media, the proper use, and the ramifications. And both could be solved by proper training in technology. (Have you looked at what's available to you with a FREE Google Account?
Just today I was told by someone that his son was stuck on a homework problem and he was able to Facebook his teacher and get feedback. Right then. Imagine if it was a more comprehensive question. And instead of this student getting some straightforward answer, he was directed correctly to a subject matter expert who was also on Facebook. Imagine how much richer that learning experience suddenly is. And it also sets a precedent that learning is happening all around.
Now, what happens when we just block this type of communication? Students are still left on their own, their Social Media is for socializing, no one is monitoring, and they don't make the very real connection between their online "socializing" and the real world. For examples just start using Twitter search terms like "need a job" or "got to get this homework done". You will find kids with racy pictures and unprofessional junk littered all over their online profile. And guess who is out there googling these student's names? College Entry Boards, Scholarship Advisory Boards, Employers, etc.
Our students are NOT mature enough to handle the ramifications of their online activity. And no one is teaching them to use it to their advantage in the real world. We are choosing to ignore it because we think Twitter is for telling the world what type of sandwich we are eating. And that Facebook is for stalking. They are both COMPLETELY false - though they've fallen in to that because no one is teaching or willing to learn.
Here's another point: We trust our teachers to take students into a small learning environment, we trust them to coach them, ride the bus, punish, and pull them out into the hall for one-on-one discussion. We trust them to pull a student over to their desk and whisper to them about their work while others take a test. We trust them to have students as officers of organizations for extra-curricular activities. We trust our teachers behind closed classroom doors. But we don't want them to have a public conversation?
And how many realize that I can message anyone on Facebook? Does anyone realize that a student can use the @ tag in front of my name and call me out on Twitter? I've had full conversations with people who were not followers or who I wasn't following. So what are we protecting students or even school districts from exactly?
As someone famous once infamously said, "No other generation has ever been better prepared for the Industrial Revolution."
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
FB and Twitter Make You More Productive
A study I saw today from a Wired article shows how Facebook and Twitter makes people more productive. It really is a great article and is certainly worth a read here: Wired Magazine
The basic principle is that we explore and then exploit. It also goes back to the idea that we are entering a time of non-linear thinking and doing. Our younger generation is a group exponential learners (and doers). They look like they are goofing off - and may very well be doing just that. But then the deadline comes and everything is somehow completed expertly.
Educators NEED to recognize this now. I'll say it again. Social Media is NOT a toy.
You might read further into the comments and you'll see someone who doesn't buy in to the idea. He/she makes the comment that "everything in moderation" applies here. Not sure what they thought was the argument to what was being said, but they certainly used the phrase to try and discredit the information. It was a worthy try.
I kind of took it as a response to a previous post that expressed the need for educators to read the article. It was something they needed to read and "get". This response downplayed the ability of social media to make people more productive through bursts of productivity interlaced with downtime.
So, I might disagree with the conclusion, but I'll always side with the "moderation" phrase. However, this is my conclusion:
I don't think anyone gets lost on Facebook and Twitter because they are being lazy or actively searching for ways to waste time. I believe it's just too easy to want to consume more information. And then we look up and the day is gone. So I don't think "moderation" is the problem/solution/goal here. It's focus. It's the ability or skill to focus. Or the ability to take the wealth of information, stop the input, and focus the information into a bright beam of productivity. Focus People.
And if Social Media is not a toy. If it will exist in the workplace. If it is a viable communication and teaching tool, then we have ONE MORE reason to teach with it in our schools. ONE MORE reason that we should be teaching digital litteracy and skills in the classroom.
Our students need to learn how to manage and focus, focus and manage. But they still need the right and then left brain activity spurts to keep them going. Ignoring what the world and workplace is doing to get product is putting our students years behind the industry. They need the skill - it's one that they will only learn on their own through maturity. Which means wasting a whole lot of time, taking zeros on assignments, getting reprimanded/fired from work, etc.
The stakes are high, folks. The stakes are high.
The basic principle is that we explore and then exploit. It also goes back to the idea that we are entering a time of non-linear thinking and doing. Our younger generation is a group exponential learners (and doers). They look like they are goofing off - and may very well be doing just that. But then the deadline comes and everything is somehow completed expertly.
Educators NEED to recognize this now. I'll say it again. Social Media is NOT a toy.
You might read further into the comments and you'll see someone who doesn't buy in to the idea. He/she makes the comment that "everything in moderation" applies here. Not sure what they thought was the argument to what was being said, but they certainly used the phrase to try and discredit the information. It was a worthy try.
I kind of took it as a response to a previous post that expressed the need for educators to read the article. It was something they needed to read and "get". This response downplayed the ability of social media to make people more productive through bursts of productivity interlaced with downtime.
So, I might disagree with the conclusion, but I'll always side with the "moderation" phrase. However, this is my conclusion:
I don't think anyone gets lost on Facebook and Twitter because they are being lazy or actively searching for ways to waste time. I believe it's just too easy to want to consume more information. And then we look up and the day is gone. So I don't think "moderation" is the problem/solution/goal here. It's focus. It's the ability or skill to focus. Or the ability to take the wealth of information, stop the input, and focus the information into a bright beam of productivity. Focus People.
And if Social Media is not a toy. If it will exist in the workplace. If it is a viable communication and teaching tool, then we have ONE MORE reason to teach with it in our schools. ONE MORE reason that we should be teaching digital litteracy and skills in the classroom.
Our students need to learn how to manage and focus, focus and manage. But they still need the right and then left brain activity spurts to keep them going. Ignoring what the world and workplace is doing to get product is putting our students years behind the industry. They need the skill - it's one that they will only learn on their own through maturity. Which means wasting a whole lot of time, taking zeros on assignments, getting reprimanded/fired from work, etc.
The stakes are high, folks. The stakes are high.
Friday, January 8, 2010
The Challenge
I spent $10 on an iTunes giftcard and put out a mass email: First one to tell me who said this and in what year wins an iTunes session with me and the card. It was answered in under 2 minutes. Within 5 minutes I had 15 answers. Throughout the day I would have more than 25 answers and more than 3 "off-topic" conversations. More on the unperceived value of this challenge later, let me tackle my initial concept.
Here's the first quote pertaining to how we learn:
"...the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs."
What is the first thing you think of after reading this? Someone recent started ranting why IT should open the firewall back up on Facebook, right? This person must be talking about social media in the classroom.
What if I told you this was John Dewey in 1897? If you are still rolling your eyes at the quote then it would be akin to a physicist rolling his eyes at Einstein or Newton.
Dewey makes an example shortly after this quote about how a baby learns to speak. They start babbling but soon learn to control those babbles and form them into more precise sounds as their social surrounding dictate until they are able to form the sound "daddy" and connect that to their father turning around and giving them attention enough times that "Daddy" becomes the name of the father.
So... If our social demands and language is changing (again back to my mission as a tech specialist - what I'm constantly telling you) and our learning is based on "stimulation of powers by the demands of social situations" then how important is it to be involved and working within the demands of that social climate? Essentially, there is a younger generation that is beginning to speak a completely separate language that is more rich than you can keep up with and they are - in all reality - with out the ability to speak the language of the other generation.
But why is that important? Shouldn't they just tone it down and zone in and "if they want a grade then they'll listen up"? My mission is to get you to understand that this is not a fad or a use of toys and entertainment devices, this is an evolving language!
If I still haven't gotten your attention, then I want you to sit down in a classroom to learn something you have no idea about, and the teacher will ONLY speak a Shakespearean English. You will be required to listen up and follow along. You know every single word, none of those words are non-English, I mean, Shakespeare had about a third of the vocabulary you have, so you should be able to follow along.
Something I've learned from this is the reverse. I'm speaking a hyper language and expecting a lot of you to run to my videos and even this blog and learn and run with it. But you aren't speaking this language. So what did I do about it?
Well, jumping off of my last blog, I used a classic marketing technique. I gave away a free iTunes card and created a buzz. The buzz was about two separate things:
1.) it might be worth it to open Jacob's email immediately - it will have good and quick info anyway; and
2.) Who said that and when did they say that?
-- Which inevitably leads to a.) you having some buy-in to read my blog based on your previous interest and how easily you were able to come up with the info (so many more people participated since it was easy to just copy and paste the quote into google without even reading - you wouldn't have if you would have had to look it up in the library) and;
b.) wondering what the heck I was getting at with a quote from John Dewey in 1897.
What can you learn from my Challenge in its delivery method? How could you apply that? Have I gotten you interested in looking at social media as not a toy yet?
***Next blogs: 1.) affects of the challenge and the "off-topic" conversations
2.) At least a third of the people who answered gave the guilty confession "but don't count me, I used Google." .... wwwhhhhaaaaaaaaat?!?!
Oh! And here was the other quote from John Dewey in the challenge:
"...these interests are neither to be humored nor repressed. To repress interest is to substitute the adult for the child, and so to weaken intellectual curiosity and alertness, to suppress initiative, and to deaden interest."
Here's the first quote pertaining to how we learn:
"...the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs."
What is the first thing you think of after reading this? Someone recent started ranting why IT should open the firewall back up on Facebook, right? This person must be talking about social media in the classroom.
What if I told you this was John Dewey in 1897? If you are still rolling your eyes at the quote then it would be akin to a physicist rolling his eyes at Einstein or Newton.
Dewey makes an example shortly after this quote about how a baby learns to speak. They start babbling but soon learn to control those babbles and form them into more precise sounds as their social surrounding dictate until they are able to form the sound "daddy" and connect that to their father turning around and giving them attention enough times that "Daddy" becomes the name of the father.
So... If our social demands and language is changing (again back to my mission as a tech specialist - what I'm constantly telling you) and our learning is based on "stimulation of powers by the demands of social situations" then how important is it to be involved and working within the demands of that social climate? Essentially, there is a younger generation that is beginning to speak a completely separate language that is more rich than you can keep up with and they are - in all reality - with out the ability to speak the language of the other generation.
But why is that important? Shouldn't they just tone it down and zone in and "if they want a grade then they'll listen up"? My mission is to get you to understand that this is not a fad or a use of toys and entertainment devices, this is an evolving language!
If I still haven't gotten your attention, then I want you to sit down in a classroom to learn something you have no idea about, and the teacher will ONLY speak a Shakespearean English. You will be required to listen up and follow along. You know every single word, none of those words are non-English, I mean, Shakespeare had about a third of the vocabulary you have, so you should be able to follow along.
Something I've learned from this is the reverse. I'm speaking a hyper language and expecting a lot of you to run to my videos and even this blog and learn and run with it. But you aren't speaking this language. So what did I do about it?
Well, jumping off of my last blog, I used a classic marketing technique. I gave away a free iTunes card and created a buzz. The buzz was about two separate things:
1.) it might be worth it to open Jacob's email immediately - it will have good and quick info anyway; and
2.) Who said that and when did they say that?
-- Which inevitably leads to a.) you having some buy-in to read my blog based on your previous interest and how easily you were able to come up with the info (so many more people participated since it was easy to just copy and paste the quote into google without even reading - you wouldn't have if you would have had to look it up in the library) and;
b.) wondering what the heck I was getting at with a quote from John Dewey in 1897.
What can you learn from my Challenge in its delivery method? How could you apply that? Have I gotten you interested in looking at social media as not a toy yet?
***Next blogs: 1.) affects of the challenge and the "off-topic" conversations
2.) At least a third of the people who answered gave the guilty confession "but don't count me, I used Google." .... wwwhhhhaaaaaaaaat?!?!
Oh! And here was the other quote from John Dewey in the challenge:
"...these interests are neither to be humored nor repressed. To repress interest is to substitute the adult for the child, and so to weaken intellectual curiosity and alertness, to suppress initiative, and to deaden interest."
What's that make you think?
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