Students are connected. They're connected via internet, cell phone, text messaging, and gaming. They leave school only to hop on the computer and reconnect to their friends and peers that they saw only moments before. Students want to connect via the web. They are on Myspace, Facebook, email, Glogster, and other social sites. They crave putting themselves on the web. Students are excited to have their voices heard, and educators need to be open to bringing social networking inside the school. We can apply the ideas of The Cluetrain Manifesto to education and find that schools should change in the same ways that corporate America should change.
Social networking among educators is not just a pipe dream; it’s necessary to create the best learning environment possible for students. In The Cluetrain Manifesto,the 95 Theses bluntly state that companies need new methods of networking. Like corporate America, educators aren’t making the steps that are necessary to not only succeed in the current state of high-stakes education, but we’re failing at merely surviving in it. Thesis 8 states “…among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way” (xii). In my opinion, educators are speaking to each other, but the method of conservations lacks power or the ability to create change. Imagine the control and insight that teachers would gain if they utilized social networking tools to the fullest ability. Create communities and networks that use Diigo to collect ideas and data in one place (versus spending an evening Googling something that other people have already found). Gather people to network on Google Docs in order to plan meetings, schedules, write common assessments (rather than forcing one person to write the assessment, and then share the hard work for little or no credit). Build Ning networks that reflect on best practices and innovative ideas. In the end, it is the students who will miss the opportunities that truly networked teachers provide.
Social networking will get everyone invested and connected. The irony is: we leave No Child Left Behind, but are we leaving educators behind? Those who are networking and collaborating are succeeding, whereas those who remain walled off remain static. Sarah Robbins-Bell tells us to “embrace technology because it exemplifies everyone being a lifelong learner with high quality information.” That can be said for both students and educators.
As a media specialist, I am excited to connect to my students in new and dynamic ways. Even though I have maintained a web page, I now see that it’s static. I want to change my primary means of communication to a wiki. On it, I can allow students to visit, comment, view clips, see my Shelfari site, connect to and read my blog. I hope to toss my Dreamweaver page to the side and make my wiki as interactive and engaging as possible. I want my students to help make it that way by sharing ideas, commenting, and contributing to its content. My students need to be networked to school (and with a purpose), not just each other.
I’m also excited to begin connecting students to other students. My head is buzzing with ideas to bring students together on social networking sites. I can create a Facebook page for my library. Students can not only “friend” me, but can create imaginative profiles. Students can create profiles of their favorite literary characters, making updates and posts in the voice of the character. I can have students collaborate on wikis, demonstrating collaboration skills to compile videos, music, Glogs, and comments that demonstrate knowledge of literature, genres, research, and personal reflections. Students can create podcasts or Voice Threads to communicate learning, comment on each others’ learning, and attain a higher level of understanding and questioning.
Additionally, building connections between students and peers or educators doesn’t take full advantage of social networking in the way that Cluetrain insists. Making a connection to the community is also critically important. By connecting educator’s blogs and wikis to parents through RSS feeds, we keep all parents in an instant form of communication – even better, create a community Ning and ask parents to contribute information. Also, imagine the possibilities of creating a Facebook page for the school and allowing parents to join. Posts could include news, upcoming events, reminders, schedule changes, and more. Photos taken at school could be uploaded to albums, allowing parents access to save them on home computers. Taking it a step further, a Facebook page could be created for a particular graduating class – a page that could document the students’ careers all the way through graduation. Imagine the collection of memories and photographs would be like.
The road to this degree of social networking will not be easily paved. Parents may resist the idea of putting themselves or their children “for the world to see.” Those parents should be educated to the advanced settings of many social networking sites, making images and other information public or private. Schools may resist the idea of creating student email accounts, which would be required for almost all social networking site registrations. One option is to create an “internal” email database that won’t truly function as email, but more as an address that “looks” like an email account simply because it has an @. Also, students and teachers must be particularly aware of having an airtight, carefully monitored and updated Acceptable Use Policy. The lines have blurred between home and school liability, and must time and effort should go into creating this policy. Furthermore, many students have “do not photograph” files on record which state that particular child may not have a photograph taken, posted, or shared anywhere. The liability that a school may face if one of these children is in the background of a Flickr or Voice Thread photo is great. However, a major argument that may convince parents to allow students to “share” themselves online is the access that professionals will have. Sarah Robbins-Bell suggested that a graduating senior would be able to advertise their skills, areas of interest, and successes in a social network. It not only changes who students can read, but also who can reach our students.
I can’t say that Sarah Robbins-Bell or Cluetrain actually changed my ideas of social networking. What they did do, however, is create a sense of urgency in me. I used to feel exclusive in my ideas of bringing social networking to my students; I didn’t feel as if any of my teachers were “on board," and so I stopped pushing. Now, I see that I’m right to think that 4th graders can blog or tweet. I also see that I have the evidence and research to back me up. I know that my students can do this. I know that my teachers can do this. I just have to find my voice and become a leader in my school in order to create change.
Social Media and Education Podcast, PhD candidate Sarah Robbins-Bell at the 2008 Educause conference in Orlando, FL.
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, & D. Weinberger (2001)
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