You might be interested in checking out this Blog about social networking: http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/
One of the postings, from Jan. 19, has the audio of an Iowa Public Radio interview (a little less than 30 min. long) with Professor Michael Bugeja, from Iowa State University. Real Audio stream. He presents the “con” side of using social networking and other popular technologies with educational tools. He talks briefly about the hidden costs of technology. For example, social networking has marketing motives “seamlessly interwoven in the interface.” When the interviewer comments that using social networking and other technologies in education engages students more, Bugeja comments that this can lead to sacrificing content for engagement. On his website, he states, “This is not the Age of Information. This is the Age of Distraction. And distraction in academia is deadly because it undermines critical thinking.” (http://interpersonal-divide.org/) He said that just because young people are using social networking and other technologies, including texting and i-pods, it doesn’t mean we should use them in education. Some of the devices are not really conducive to education. Additionally, we need to keep distinctions between education, socialization, and entertainment. He gave the example of not wanted to learn when playing video games--when he plays video games, he wants it to be just for entertainment. He also talked about how e-mail and the internet makes it impossible to separate work and social life.
He brings up some great points that we don't always think about, such as the hidden agenda of social networking and even free e-mail sites. Also, we shouldn’t use new technologies just because they are "new technologies" without thinking about if they are the best tool to use. However, I wasn't convinced by his argument about needing to separate education, socialization, and entertainment. They have always been intertwined. That is just how we interact and learn. We have always used the same tools in different kinds of ways. People use discussion as socialization, and also in education; we read books for entertainment, but also in education. Just like Ong discussed, even writing is a technology that we use. Neither is making social connections while learning anything new. Peer-support and socialization in the classroom is also essential to classroom learning. Collaboration helps us understand better than simply taking in information, such as from a lecture.
After I listened to his interview, I found the Economist.com debate between Bugeja and Ewan McIntosh, National Adviser on Learning and Technology Futures for Learning and Teaching in Scotland. The proposition was the following: “The house believes that social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom.”
If you want more to think about regarding the negatives of using social networking in education, also see this attack on Facebook and the founders and backers of Facebook by Tom Hodgkinson. It begins with the sentence, “I despise Facebook,” which sets the tone of the article. This writer is so extreme, it's hard for me to get past his hostility.
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5 comments:
Hi Becky - could you add citations for those links? They aren't working for me.
Sometimes the blogger template makes it hard to view longer links too, so I don't know where the problem is coming from.
Weird. I tried fixing the links, and made the link to the interview go directly to the Real Audio stream. Otherwise for that one go to onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com and search for "Michael Bugeja." Please let me know if you still can't get it. Thanks!
Janet
I will agree that Tom Hodgkinson's article had a negative bent, however, I found him passionate about the topic and grains of truth in it was not lost on me. His closing paragraph about becoming "unplugged" and living more life, reading more classics, and making a difference is succinct. It is so entirely easy to "waste" our precious lives typing away at the computer. It is too easy to over work, over investigate, over snoop, under the guise of increasing our information.
Will there be Social Network Addiction clubs in the future? Do people really understand how their information is being used and how it may impact our futures?
I can't help but feel that a large part of our humanness has to do with our ability to read other humans via our visual perceptions of them. Will this get lost in the expanse of Social Networks online? Does "feeling" connected, regardless of how we are connected, physically or online, make a difference to our psyches?
Rather than panic, I sought after some answers, where else, but online, regarding our brain chemistry and the naturalness of looking for satisfaction on the internet.
According to David Phillips, a renowned British Social psychologist for corporate entities, the internet and web 2.0 activities are a natural progression for our human drives. In the video and podcast of Psychology Behind Social Networks, http://netpr.blogspot.com/ David Phillips reports on the psychology and brain science behind social networks. His focus is on Public Relations for companies, however, his research into brain study and social psychology answer a few questions for us mere students.
In the program, Phillips points out that our online connections and social networks such as FaceBook do fulfill some of our basic human needs to connect to others. Based on brain studies, our extraordinarily large brain has allowed us to adapt while advancing and “supporting social groups”.
He states that we humans have always formed groups in order to support our goals. We historically have aligned ourselves with others that are like minded to assist us in reaching our aim of survival. He cites as example, hunter-gatherers that banded together to search and capture prey. In order to be successful in achieving survival goals, humans developed trust for one another, and relied on each other to do his part for the good of the group. From these basic motives we have learned to crave close human connections and form trusts which we know as friendships.
Our humanness creates the need in us to seek broader ground, therefore, in addition to our needs for human companionship, our large human brain has allowed us to fulfill our innate drives at a more increased pace by extending ourselves beyond our physical capabilities. We have done this via technological and industrial inventions such as the car. Phillips points out that cars, of course, take us farther and faster than our legs could ever carry us and fulfills our drive(pun) for expansion into new physical territories. Similarly, computers extend our foray into information access and most certainly have vastly increased our social ability and mobility.
Our connection reach to others has exploded to a global population, and social networks such as Facebook and My Space are a natural extension of our need to for expression within online society. Phillips states that Web 2.0 products are significant to our humanness. The colors, for example, and the rapidity of instant response triggers our basic drives to seek and connect. He feels that within these social online communities we will seek ways to further define who we are as well as attract similar connections. He implies that we will develop online literacies that will let us know who or what is trustworthy and with whom we can form friendships.
It is pointed out that we as humans prefer smaller tight knit communities and will continually form niches that serve our needs within the larger internet society. Networks such as Facebook, allows us to form neighborhoods in this wild online frontier. Phillips mentions the wildness of web 2.0 and its unlimited freedom as a catalyst to our human drive to seek and explore more passionately. It is when communities become too large that we seek more personal expression and tighter associations.
Of course, in his closing statement, David Phillips reiterates what Tom Hodgkinson and I both agree upon; That all of this online social connection can only be enhanced by meaningful face to face communication, and preferably amongst the beauty of nature.
What is not answered here is whether online social seeking will exceed that of face to face personal connection, and what will be the effects if we lose our visual literacy towards those things natural and only build on web literacy?
Cynthia (or Janet? I'm not sure why there are two names on your post) you've raised a lot of interesting questions.
To answer some of your ending concerns (as a Web 2.0 junkie): I need the internet to maintain my friendships. My life right now is simply too busy otherwise. I have plenty of daily face-to-face social contact through my family and work and church, but I would not see anyone else very often if I didn't have the web.
Facebook, e-vite, e-mail, etc. give me an easy way to "check in" with them, to find out when they need some help or when they're interested in taking a break and doing something together. I've grown up online and have never been a telephone person. Frankly, I can't imagine any other way to keep in touch with most of the people I know.
My participation in other social sites like flickr have given me a place to go when I want to focus on an interest I don't share with people in my face-to-face social life. I love that I can learn from and about people all around the world, that I can see their interests and knowledge evolving and share my own with them as well. It's fun, it's led to new activities for me and opened up a wider understanding of photography (in flickr's case) and the world in general.
Our media literacy class is certainly timely! I just finished reading an article by the president of the MacArthur Foundation in which he states that the foundation believes that "technology is changing the way young people think, learn, play, make judgments, and relate to others. Understanding these changes requires a new interdisciplinary field we call digital media and learning."
He goes on to cite several importatnt statistics: 72% of teens use IM's daily, 83% play video games regularly, 50% who use the internet have created media content, 33% have shared that content on the internet. These are amazing statistics that show the major role that media is having in our students' lives on a daily basis.
The MacArthur Foundation MacArthurFoundation is committing $50 million dollars over the next 5 years through grants to study the effects of media. Some of the proposals are to examine the role of literacy and the impact of playing video games on learning.
The president says that we need to understand the role that media has in the lives of young people and hints that much of the learning taking place is doing so outside of the regular classroom. He also states that we need to understand better how to help young people navigate these media tools that they so freely use, plus help the educational institutions that prepare students better understand how the media affects them.
The Foundation seems to be committed to examining the realistic aspects of media in the lives of our young people and helping those of us who are playing catch-up in this digital world as well.
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