Model Behaviour
A former student of mine and an accomplished athlete (and linguist) got it touch with me yesterday via Twitter as ask me what I thought about Varsity Monitor, an American service that “monitors the social media interaction of athletes for questionable conduct that could negatively affect their athletic availability, hurt their future career & sponsorship opportunities, and damage the brand of their team, league & institution.” Both he and I were appalled by the concept, but not really surprised.
Not really surprised because the approach taken by Varsity Monitor is similar to that seen in many schools up and down the country. Social media usage is a “problem” that must be dealt with. Schools often lack positive and organic policies governing, not just the abuse, as it is often solely the case, but the use of social media. Thus schools monitor social media but seldom teach children how to use them appropriately.
Both research and my own personal experience have shown me that students’ attitudes towards social media are overwhelmingly positive and that, when effectively utilised, social media allow our students to continue learning beyond the constraints of the school’s walls, expanding the learning environment to wherever the learner happens to be, acting as a bridge between school and home and between formal and informal learning.
Yes
Schools are like oil tankers. Do bear with me. They’re like oil tankers because they move forward ever so slowly and take an age to change course. Inertia, you see, is a very powerful force indeed. A million noes preventing a change of direction. Because noes are safe. If in doubt, go without, they say.
A yes, however, is a game-changer. Every yes carries a risk but it also brings with it hopeful promises and potential rewards. Every yes is a new possibility, a different future. A single yes can keep us going in the face of constant refusal and feeds our ingenuity. A yes fosters a sense of belonging to the school that employs us. Just one yes is all it takes.
Every school needs more yeses and fewer noes. So challenge yourself to say yes more often. Change course, say yes.
One Learning Environment
I have always felt drawn towards Vygotsky‘s socio-constructivist views on how learning comes about. He establishes that communication is critical to the development of thought and behaviour and puts forward the notion of the “zone of proximal development”1 or ZPD.
The ZPD is defined as the greater range of tasks that a child can complete with the guidance and assistance of others – be they adults or other children – as opposed to the tasks a child can complete independently.
Thus, according to socio-constructivist views, close contact between the learner and those within the ZPD helps individuals make sense of what is being learnt and stretches the learning beyond what any single student would have been able to construct in isolation.
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Through the Right Channels
Anuj Bidve, a 23-year-old Indian post-graduate student at the University of Lancaster, was cruelly and as of yet inexplicably shot dead on Boxing Day while he was out with his friends enjoying Manchester’s Christmas celebrations.
I’ve been following closely news reports of his murder to keep appraised of the developments in the police investigation, hoping that the perpetrator of this heinous crime might be arrested and brought to justice without delay – if only to provide his family back in India with a reason for their tragic loss, if ever one can be gleaned.
Huw Edwards, news reader at the BBC, highlighted yesterday that Anuj’s father had learnt of the tragedy on Facebook. He raised an eyebrow and the tone of his voice changed slightly, a tad pejoratively, as he pronounced the word Facebook.
A Short History of the Pillar Box
Sending and receiving mail used to be a very public affair. Senders had to take their letters in person to a receiver at a Receiving House or to a Turnpike House where their mail waited to be picked up by the Royal Mail coach. Receiving a letter was the same procedure in reverse. Who was posting or receiving mail was public knowledge.
When the first pillar boxes were introduced in Britain from mainland Europe in the 1850s, the instinctive reaction of many was one of concern. Concern because now there was a way in which letters could be sent anonymously by slipping them into the now iconic red pillar boxes. The contemporaneous introduction of the Uniform Penny Post, complete with postman deliveries, ensured that receiving mail became a simplified and private business too.
Many worried about the consequences of such postal reforms: The public would begin to send letters anonymously and cheaply and nobody would know who was writing to whom and for what mischievous purpose. This clearly marked the beginning of the end of Victorian moral rectitude and heralded the breakdown of civilised society.
Needless to say, despite the unfounded initial concerns, the ensuing revolution in interpersonal communication heralded, not the collapse of civilisation, but the dawn of a new era of democratised transmission of information.
I cannot help but draw many parallels between this and the adoption of social communication technologies in schools.
What do you think?
Many thanks to wasabicube for his picture.
Facebook as a Social Learning Platform
Many schools now use web-based learning platforms to support and supplement the delivery of teaching and learning. Although they are undeniably useful in the educational context, learning platforms do lilttle more than support – and thus attempt to perpetuate – the traditional model of teacher-centred pedagogy and, as such, fail to deliver the kind of transformative change that would place students at the centre of their own learning.
Many will argue that learning platforms do facilitate teaching and learning. This, in my view, is unquestionable and a positive step in the right direction. But few are able to say hand on heart that the learning platforms they are implementing succeed in engaging their students beyond low-level transactional interactions: here’s my homework, here’s your grade.
In many cases, communication is only allowed to take between teachers and students, but not among students. In fact, the one factor that would ensure student engagement is often blocked out of those platforms which do support it: social networking. Schools remain by and large terrified of allowing their students to communicate among themselves.
The levels of user engagement on which commercial social networking sites like Facebook thrive therefore remains utterly unattainable for school learning platforms that attempt to reproduce faithfully traditional models of teaching and learning. Unfortunately, this pill comes with substantial side-effects: without this coveted student engagement, learning platforms tend to become overpriced and unwieldy repository of word documents and powerpoint presentations.
Recent posts
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Model Behaviour
January 25, 2012
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Yes
January 17, 2012
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One Learning Environment
January 8, 2012
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Through the Right Channels
December 31, 2011
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A Short History of the Pillar Box
December 29, 2011
