This is the week for (mostly) short projects– I guess mostly because I know the final project looms. So this is where we’ll talk about:
- “Thanks for the Add. Now Help Me With My Homework,” Michael Blanding. and Will Richardson’s take on this.
- “3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology.”
- And the movie “The Twitter Experiment”
All of these things are pretty clear, I think. With the “Thanks for the Add” article, I have to say that I have literally seen this with my son and his friends. Will barely uses Facebook, but he will sometimes use it to find out about homework from his friends and vice-versa. Be sure to check out Will Richardson’s blog posting on this because I think he simultaneously sums up why this use of Facebook is a good thing and why it is often resisted by K-12 educators.
Then there’s the Twitter Experiment:
I personally find this pretty compelling, and I must say that this sort of thing and other live presentations (Steve Johnson refers to this in his article) are the most useful things about Twitter I’ve seen. Actually, as a slight tangent, this is something worth mentioning here about the recent CCCCs. There was a tweet hashtag for the conference, #cccc10 If you do a search for that, you’ll be able to see the various tweets that people made. There’s another site that is part of a service called “Twapper Keeper” that also has past tweets: http://www.twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/cccc10
Here is also a graphic representation of the Tweeting patterns by different users at the conference. This is pretty representative of the the “long tail” effect that Shirky talked about (but which was popularized by Chris Anderson). You’ll find me on there someplace…
This is all a way of saying that I think that Twitter is an interesting service that we’re still trying to figure out how it might be useful. Which is kinda cool, right?
The Twitter experiment is cool. I can see how students who normally wouldn’t participant in discussion might be more inclined to tweet an opinion about a topic. I’m not quite sure how Twitter is being used here though. It looks like Rankin has it running during class as well? Does she then just respond to the tweets? Anyway, the idea seems “right on”, however, I’m not sure Twitter will ultimately be the best way to do something like this.
I agree with Brian. I kinda wish the video was a little longer and showed maybe 10-15 minutes of an actual class discussion/lecture taking place while using twitter. I didn’t really get the logistics of how it’s actually being used IN class. Is she using the tweets to move the discussion along, stopping every few minutes to address them, or responding to them later? I just didn’t really get it. But, I think it sounds very cool and has a lot of potential. But, like she said, it is going to be messy… especially at first. I know they talk about how some students who might not otherwise participate are more comfortable tweeting, but I wonder if the opposite might also be true in some cases. When you comments are displayed for everyone to see, that might also be intimidating because of the permanence of it. I might be wrong, IDK.
I also thought the idea of using Skype in a foriegn language class was awesome. Speaking as someone who struggled immensely with a F.L. class in undergrad, I think it would be extremely valuable.
Can either of you tell if the students are accessing these tweets Online during class? It looks like it… So what’s to prevent students from goofing off on the net during class then? Hate to say it, but, if I even click on my internet icon during class time, I won’t stay on task very long – it’s just the nature of the net. We go on the internet to surf from one thing to the next, so I’m imagining that students aren’t avidly following the tweets the whole class period, which might actually compromise learning more than facilitate it.
I was thinking that too, Andrea. I think this is something that would work better in a college classroom than in a middle or high school setting. If students are goofing off in a college course, you can pretty much just be resolved to “Well, that’s on you.” But, you can’t really say that to a mid/high school student. Teachers have more responsibility in those settings. But, I think that it could work for mid/high school so long as certain guidelines were put in place and enforced. Speaking from past experience, I think a lot of times h.s/m.s. teachers avoid doing activities that allow room for the possibility of goofing off because they 1.)underestimate younger student’s abilities to stay on task, and 2.) don’t want to go through the work of establishing/reinforcing the necessary boundaries to do such activities. But, I think that when something high risk also carries with it the possibility for high reward, we shouldn’t be scared away from trying it. It will be messy at first, but you can always abandon it if it doesn’t work for a particular group. If you don’t let yourself try it, you will never know what the potential benefits may have been.
*I’m not accusing anyone of this, it’s just a general observation* But, I think it’s funny sometimes how teachers can be simultaneously idealistic and at times have extremely low expectations. What I mean is, we say that every student has the ability to learn and improve (which is really, kind of idealistic) and yet we say, “My students couldn’t handle doing an activity like that” (which sets pretty low expectations of what we think they can achieve). I understand it because I’ve been as guilty as anyone of subscribing to both of these at times, but it’s probably not a very healthy attitude to have.
I think it is one of those things, Andrea, that students don’t stay on task already. Wireless access is available in almost every classroom and I routinely see students open Word to take notes and then open Facebook and Twitter at the same time.
I think you’re exactly right, Ashlee. A lot of my colleagues ban things like laptops from their classes because they demand their students’ “undivided attention.” Really. Really? Do you really think they were always paying attention before? Actually, we’ll read a bit about this next week in an essay by one of my new colleagues. Derek Mueller…
hmmm…I’d still say that surfing the internet during class provides a whole new distraction component than wondering minds. I hate to say it, but I know from personal experience of trying to “multi-task” this way
I’m not sure what to make of the laptop in ENLG 121. I encourage my students to bring them because, personally, I know that I can’t do a “fast-write” myself with pen and paper. However, I do find Facebook to be a problem.
I’m not crazy about students using Facebook in class either, but that’s pretty easy to deal with: “hey you, turn that off!” and so forth. When I want students to pay attention to something, I just say “hey, close up the laptops and pay attention to this.” If I see someone abusing the laptop thing in class, I take them aside and say “you need to quit that.” I’d rather have students have their computers right there so they can do stuff with them, like work on drafts and research and such.
The thing that really gets me going are cell phones.
And I should also say that one of the things I like about teaching online is that all of these sorts of issues kinda disappear….
I’ve actually wondered a lot about why students ever think it’s OK to be on Facebook/whatever during class time? Why do they bother going to class if they’re not going to engage with the material or listen to what the instructor is saying? Is it an immaturity thing? As an undergrad, I knew not to be on non-course related sites during class. That’s the equivalent of reading a newspaper in class. Not only is it distracting–it’s also disrespectful and silly. I would find is super frustrating to have to explain to a student why it’s not OK to be checking your Facebook wall in class–unless it were part of a class activity.
You all have probably seen the studies that claim businesses lose billions of dollars a year in lost productivity because their employees are spending too much time on social networking sites. As others have said before, I agree that a lot as to do with HOW students/employees are using these sites. Building in time for students/employees to be online can actually boost productivity and their ability to get work done (as discussed in the Pasek et al article somewhat); Google is a great example of this open administration model, as is The Twitter Experiment classroom. Banning social networking is a lot like censoring online gambling–it will still go on, just underground and without important regulations.
I’m almost glad that people have iphones to use instead of the computers in the labs.
Ha! Heck, I’ve seen faculty checking their FB accounts during meetings, and I know there was a controversy at U of M about law school students goofing off during classes. And you know what faculty would do before laptops in meetings? Grade papers, doodle, make “to do” lists, etc.
So in that sense, I have some sympathy with students: if the class/meeting is “boring” and seems to be about the teacher/chair of the meeting listening to him/herself talking, then why not use the time to check FB?
In other words, and this may be a bit extreme I admit, the best way to cut down on students goofing off is do all you can as a teacher to make the class interesting and/or relevant. You won’t always succeed of course– I know I don’t. But one sure way to drive students to distraction is to be boring and irrelevant.
As I understand it from the video, the prof has some grad students screening the twitter stream and then she uses that guide the lecture– you know, making some questions get answered and stuff. I haven’t tried doing something like this in a f2f class yet, but I have had better experiences at different times using it for online classes. The twitter stream for English 444 last summer was pretty useful, for example.
I, too, like the Twitter Experiment. I think it is a good way to get reactions from more students than a normal classtime would allow. It is also a good way to gauge the overall understanding and feelings of the class. In some way, however, it slightly concerns me. It’s important that students develop a self-confidence that empowers them to speak out in class and bring topics up for discussion — verbally. Does this play in to insecurities and allow students to stay in their comfort spot?
The twitter experiment was interesting, and I guess I can see how it might have some applications, however, I haven’t noticed that any of these sites that suggest using technology make any special considerations for those students who cannot afford the technology. With the state of our current economy, I wonder if a student who is sitting in a class where most of the students have access to laptops or blackberries and they do not, if that would make them feel disenfranchized. I have a student now who had a laptop a couple of months ago. But, just recently, her mom had to sell it and it is a real matter of embarrassment to her……. I am sure that not all college students have access to these tools. While the prof might not require it, I still wonder if it separates the students.
I did find the experiment interesting, and I really did enjoy the article on “Thanks for the Add, Now…”. I can definitely see applications for this kind of social networking, but, again, I wonder if this networking is something that goes across all classes. It seems to me, and I surely don’t check my students’ facebook accounts, that this type of networking is something that would come more naturally to the kids that ‘have it’ in the form of parents who care, of socio-economic class, etc. I wonder if the lower socio-economic groups., the borderline kids should be taught these skills that some of the others come to more naturally?
Just food for thought.
The “access issue” is one of those things that I generally think is an excuse for not doing something, to be perfectly honest. If someone is selling their laptop because they’ve got to put food on the table, then they’ve got bigger problems than whether or not they can participate in a class with technology.
All I can say is that in the classes I taught last fall (two online, and one on campus), I had one student who didn’t have a computer, and I would say that the majority of them have either a laptop or both a laptop and a desktop. They all have cell phones, and the nice thing about Twitter is that if you can use text, you can use Twitter. And they all have Facebook accounts, too.
I thought it was cool how those who didn’t have access to a computer could write out their tweets and still participate. So even if they didn’t have access, they didn’t lose points or anything, they still saw the screen and everything that was being tweeted in the class discussion. Couldn’t this be just like the students who choose not to talk in class discussions? They’re there, they hear everything that’s being said, they just aren’t “participating” in the moment. That doesn’t mean they lose out necessarily, just that they don’t have “access” at the moment.
I know they are on there a lot anyway FB and MS and all that so why ban them. I am trying to think of new ways to engage studetnts in the learning process and it seems that to get them where they are at. If they are useing social network stites and twitter why would we as educators not take advantage of that? I mean if we want to keep their attention use the technology they are useing to keep it. They are preoccuped anyway and they are not always paying attention to what we are doing or doing in class. They want to be on their cell phones and laptops so make them and then they will be doing what they want and what we want. It is a win-win for the most part. Yes you are going to have those who are messing around, but they can do that without the technology as well.
I agree Cristin. All these readings made me think about the stuff we’ve been reading about how kids need to multitask these days. I think it would be cool to use something like this in my own classroom!
I think FB and Twitter are utopias-like student places. They help people control, imagine their own environments, and function like mirrors. Over time students see why it gets old and hopefully face the limitations developed through using it and not learning its dysfunctions. Teachers are more likely than any other to see the students limitation.
I thought it was important that the Thanks for the ad” article noted how student writing has actually increased because of social networking sites. My book review book talks about this as well. Students may be “butchering language” in their texts and facebooking, but they do know the difference between how to write in emails versus texts, versus school papers. A lot of our paranoia is unfounded, students are learning a lot of new skills from technology and we as educators need to embrace this, just like Gee and Prensky and them were talking about.
I have never Skyped and haven’t used the technology, but I know a TON of students are using it and I think I need to try it out! I loved the idea of the Spanish-American dialogue happening between the two classes and countries; it’s like having a pen pal but one that can help you learn in authentic ways. I agree with the conclusion of the article, we can’t ban these technologies (like the article on the banning of Wikipedia mentioned) and it’s silly to even try. The more we try to stop students from using them, the more they will rebel and the more policing we are going to be forced to do. Let students use their cellphones in between classes, who cares? Just make sure they know they can’t take advantage of this and come late to class or keep texting once they get there. I think it can be done, but it would take a lot of discussion rather than lecturing to get students to get on board with it.
I like the Twitter experiment and for the most part my students are pretty quiet at night classes so a class discussion would be nice to try on Twitter. I am with Dave and would like to see more of this video to follow it.
I am with Steve the cell phones make me go crazy and then after the call they come up and say they have an emergency at home. Yeah right.
I am willing to try the Twitter thing if it keeps students talking about academic and discussion topics.