online communication has increased, many changes in interactions with other people have come about; if we each reflect on our personal “connectivity,” including email, ubiquitous cell access, texting and various Web sites, most of us are much more actively connected than ever.
Of course, you are a MACUL member, so it seems only natural that you use all the technology at least a bit more adroitly than most people, but think about your friends and family; aren’t many of them active users as well?
The first such social networking system I experienced was the CONFER system on the Michigan Terminal System (MTS) at the University of Michigan and later at Wayne State University as well, and more broadly through the early Merit Network; it was created by Bob Parnes and first became available in 1975. Many of the factors that still persist were immediately evident:
• There was the question of whether users should be identified by real name or if pseudonyms are acceptable.
• There was a choice whether or not responses would be moderated and edited for inappropriate discussion before being made public.
• There quickly became a need for suitable policies about content, especially in an educational institution that believes in free speech, when one person attacks another (or, heaven forbid, a teacher, a professor or the school or university) or statements are made that seem contrary to facts.
• It quickly became common to use online discussion as part of coursework.
• It became a location where documents and other course materials were placed for easy online access by others.
• Grouping happened rather quickly; a course instructor would create a session open only to those students in a specific course.
• With grouping came access control; the need to be given permission to be a part of the group, with some form of identity and password for access.
• Privacy policy issues emerged such as whether it was acceptable to copy or quote what someone said inside such a private group, in some other context.
• Questions about fair use of intellectual property had to be addressed for the online world.
• There was the ability to vote on an item put before the group; soon there were more general rating systems.
Looking at 40 years of progress, social networking is amazingly important in our personal lives. Do you look at the ratings of products contributed by other people in Amazon or Yelp or Netflix? Do you ever Skype with other people, including friends or relatives elsewhere in the world? Do you look frequently at Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Yahoo, Pinterest, Flickr, Tumblr or LinkedIn? Do you follow the discussions associated with new
MACULJOURNAL |
postings in YouTube, Gizmodo, the Huffington Post, or the New York Times? Of course! But what about in education?
ISSUES AND BARRIERS
Free speech is a deeply held value in American culture. Yet, with so many new opportunities to exercise it, and to experience the results of it, there is much trepidation, especially in K-12 schools, about the consequences. We worry a lot about how young minds will be impacted. We worry a lot about what young people will say that offends others, or is “bullying” in some form, or “detracts from real learning.”
The obvious challenge is that young people are being exposed to so much outside schools, with the implication, for example, that a traditional U.S. government civics lesson doesn’t come close to touching all the factors that students need to be attuned to and ready to cope with. Which decade is your school preparing your students for?
A FEW EXAMPLES
MACUL is of course a leader in the use of social networking, with MACUL Space
http://maculspace.ning.com/. It has the elements described at the start of this article, with discussions, chats, photos, videos, documents and more. It serves a broad but fairly specific community, and has multiple groups within it.
The Algebra 4 All site (
http://a4a.learnport.org) has that same array of elements, but is specifically for Algebra teachers, having grown out of a joint professional development project of the Michigan Mathematics and Science Center Network, Michigan Virtual University and the Michigan Department of Education. It has expanded its audience this past year beyond Michigan and has nearly 1,700 members at present; 298 lessons that have been placed on the site for sharing with other teachers, plus an extensive collection of tutorials and videos.
A different approach was taken in Michigan LearnPort® in creating
the Michigan History for Third Grade Teachers professional development course. The teachers taking the course are asked to write analyses of specific topics and then share them with other teachers in the course for feedback. Since they can start the course at any time and proceed at their own pace, using a unique site could mean that many of the postings would take place when no one else was present to view them and comment.
The solution was to create a private group in Facebook (www.
facebook.com/groups/201920646495953/) for teachers taking the professional development. On the assumption that Facebook was fairly likely to be visited with some frequency, whenever a new analysis was posted most of the other teachers would see it when they next reviewed Facebook postings.
In a recently created Michigan LearnPort course on app development for mobile devices, it was felt that the participating teachers would benefit from rich discussion, sharing, and interaction during their professional development experience. Edmodo (
www.edmodo.com/) was selected as the delivery
Social Networking continued on page 27 Winter 2013 | 19
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