After researching social networking for our recent assignment, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how the technology is being accepted in the education world. Many people think that social networking will enhance the learning environment and others think it will just be another distraction. I found an interesting debate, from 2008, hosted online by The Economist. The link to the arguments can be found here.
The proposer, Ewan McIntosh, believes that social networking is already allowing learners to become more communicative and world-aware. One of his main arguments is that students these days are used to using this technology on a daily basis and are likely to be less engaged in traditional classroom teaching methods.
On the other side of the argument Dr. Michael Bugeja thinks that social media has a number of issues that have not been addressed including privacy concerns, costs to students and schools, and corporate motives of social network sites.
63% of the people that followed the debate voted in favor of social networking. In my opinion, I think that the technology does offer many plausible applications. For example, The Flat Classroom Project is custom social network created by educators, using Ning, for in class and homework assignments. What is your opinion on the matter? Do you believe social networking has a place in the classroom?
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My last blog was on how students who have some type of online learning tend to perform better than children who only learn in a traditional setting. One of the main cons that I can think of is the lack of social interaction among the students.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I do understand both sides of the argument. If there was some way we were able to integrate both into a traditional class room setting, we would see a tremendous improvement in their grades and attention span. My thought is kids tend to pay more attention when some type of technology is involved weather; it’s a computer or hand held device, but technology seems to have a very high cost when calculated by price per child. Kids will be kids in a traditional setting and distractions are bound to happen which is going to hinder the learning process to a certain extent. We as educators will have to deal with it as it occurs.
ReplyDeleteThese are some good issues suggested as far as using social networking as part of the classroom; I say yes as long as you monitor your post and it isn’t anything negative to the course. Though as far as the argument on privacy concerning the corporate world I would have to say some work has to be done employers pride themselves to have a reason to not hire or fire someone because of the content they have on the web so this would be a negative. However business do use social web to promote their business.
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