Shooting Azimuths

What early adopters see as tools that can help refine and develop teaching and learning can sometimes be perceived as undermining by teachers who remain sceptical about the adoption of emerging technologies because of the demands placed upon them of learning and understanding the new pedagogies involved and because they often feel constrained by the contexts and pressures in which they work (Conlon and Simpson 2003). As a result, teachers often view these new technologies as superfluous or simply not conducive to better learning outcomes.

Loss of control is also an important factor for many teachers who might see the adoption of social media, not only as extremely disruptive, but also as a further erosion of academic rigour and, ultimately, of their traditional role and relevance. This may be because the tools that are familiar to our students are not so to teachers who might therefore feel unable to control their students online. King, Duke-Williams and Mottershead (2009) suggest that teacher resistance to the adoption of Web 2.0 is present because of “the little place it plays in their lives, personal or professional, and their poor perceptions of social networking”. In this context, the challenge for teachers would be to develop new teaching and learning strategies that incorporate the use of social media and that allow them to focus on learner-centred strategies, rather than the more traditional teacher-centred use, which is still widely preferred by teachers in general (Scrimshaw 2004).

In their desire to closely manage learning, both schools and teachers gravitate towards tight control of online environments but, in doing so, they often negate any possible learning benefit that may be obtained from a personal learning network. However, it would be entirely unfair, in my view, to place the blame solely on school and teacher attitudes. Students perceptions and use of technology may also play a part in the absence of social media in schools. Do secondary students wish to interact with their teachers online? The answer to this question may be more complex than it may appear initially because, as Paulsen (2008) points out, in order to obtain the necessary quality of interaction and cooperation that would lead to improved teaching and learning, participation in networks should be voluntary. A problem then arises if a sufficiently significant number of students opt out of such participation, not only in school-managed learning environments as Wheeler (2010) has already observed, but also in personal learning networks created using social media.

Manifold reasons for this reluctance of some students to participate have been suggested. Anderson (2009) argues that social networks challenge both teachers’ and students’ ability to interact and cooperate fruitfully via this medium, implying that, when it comes to academia, students too do not feel comfortable with the degree of transparency necessary for the network’s benefits to take effect. McLoughlin and Lee (2009) suggest that the blurring of the distinctions between work and play is seen as an unwelcome development by students as well as teachers and may have a detrimental role in students’ perceptions of the utility of social networks in the educational context. Hughes (2009) states that “the bridge between Web 2.0 in social use and in learning is as yet only dimly perceived by students”.

Anecdotal observations have led me to believe that secondary students see the internet as their territory and that they feel uncomfortable when this territory is encroached upon by their teachers. In my experience, teacher attempts to engage students using social networks can be seen by some students as initially intriguing but ultimately futile and, above all, uncool. As the uncool label begins to be applied to social networking for academic purposes, the negative views of a small but vociferous group of students can prove to be detrimental to achieving the desired interaction and participation. This dichotomy between student and academic culture can result in tension (Levine 2005) that can lead students to reject schools’ attempts to connect using what students perceive as their tools.

Notwithstanding the above, these barriers appear to be surmountable by both institutions and students. The use of social networking is increasing in all areas of society but, although students have been active in social networking for almost a decade now, during this time, schools and teachers have largely ignored their students’ clear desire for peer interaction and communication outside the classroom. Even though the time has passed when students entering secondary education do not remember life before social networking, many schools continue to ban, block and firewall its use, failing to grasp the important role that social media plays, not only in the private lives of their students, but also in the wider school community. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this alienation has resulted in what Livingstone (2009) describes as sporadic and unspectacular engagement with technology, apparently unfit for academic purposes.

However, as an increasing number of schools and faculties are beginning to open accounts in social networking sites – principally in Facebook and Twitter – to take advantage of the benefits of the networked and transparent transfer of information, and as students continue unrelenting in their use and enjoyment of social networking sites, a greater understanding by both parties of the educational potential of these services is beginning to emerge. Students have discovered that learning is no longer bound to the confines of the school building and schools are beginning to realise that teaching students how to use these technologies effectively for academic purposes is essential if they want their students to engage in the use of social networking appropriately, less sporadically and more spectacularly.

What do you think? Your thoughts, comments and views are always very welcome. Please don’t hesitate to leave your two penneth as a comment, below.

Photo by K Held

References

CONLON, T. and SIMPSON, M. (2003) ‘Silicon Valley versus Silicon Glen: The Impact of Computers upon Teaching and Learning: A Comparative Study’ British Journal of Educational Technology 34(2) 137150

HUGHES, A. (2009) Higher Education in a Web 2.0 world. Bristol: JISC. [Online] Available from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/generalpublications/2009/heweb2.aspx Accessed 02/06/2010

KING, T, DUKE-WILLIAMS, E, and MOTTERSHEAD, G (2009). Learning and Knowledge Building with Web 2.0 Technologies: Implications for Teacher Education. 2009 Knowledge Building Summer Institute, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, August [Online] Available at http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~kingt/research/Majorca-Paper-draft1.pdf Accessed 27/12/2010

LEVINE, A. (2005) “Worlds Apart: Disconnects Between Students and Their Colleges” in Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk, Richard H. Hersh and John Merrow (Eds) New York: Palgrave Macmillan

LIVINGSTONE, S. (2009), Children and the Internet, Cambridge: Polity

McLOUGHLIN, C, & LEE, M (2008). The Three P’s of Pedagogy for the Networked Society: Personalization, Participation, and Productivity. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Volume 20, Number 1, pp. 10–27

PAULSEN, M F (2008). Cooperative Online Education. Seminar Net, 4(2) [Online] Available from http://www.seminar.net/images/stories/vol4-issue2/paulsen_-_cooperative_online_education.pdf Accessed 18/12/2010

SCRIMSHAW, P (2004) “Enabling teachers to make successful use of ICT.” Becta [Online] Available from http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/UserFiles/KICT/File/ICT/support/enablers.pdf Accessed 03/05/11

WHEELER, S (2010) “Anatomy of a PLE” in Learning with ‘e’s [Online] Available from http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2010/07/anatomy-of-ple.html Accessed 11/07/2010

Anderson (2009) defines the term social networking as referring to “the networked tools that allow people to meet, interact and share ideas, artefacts and interests with each other”. Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social networking sites as “web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.” Shirky (2008) captures the essence of social networking more succinctly: social networks facilitate the creation of groups and the exploration of “new ways of gathering together and getting things done”.

Is the network a substitute for community? Would the use of social media in a networked manner be detrimental to the wider school community? The answer to both questions is no. As Bickford and Wright (2006) point out “were community not important for learning, colleges and universities would have little reason to exist”. The critical role of interaction in learning is reinforced by the addition of social networking to the school community, not undermined. Therefore, the addition of the learning network augments the learning community rather than provides an alternative to it, resulting in the overall enhancement of the learning environment.

Are dialogue and collaboration hampered by the addition of social networking to the learning environment? These two concepts are critical to the one-to-one and one-to-many models. However, in the many-to-many model afforded by social networking the focus shifts from collaborative to cooperative learning, from the group to the individual. Whereas collaboration demands that the group “sinks or swim together”, cooperation “focuses on opportunities to encourage both individual flexibility and affinity to a learning community” (Paulsen 2008).

Transparent information and cooperation among individuals foster the creation of personal learning environments in which participants wish to engage due to the potential benefits each can acquire. Schools and other learning outlets have thus far shied away from encouraging the development of such personal learning environments using the host of Web 2.0 and social media tools available, preferring instead to impose learning management systems, sometimes euphemistically called virtual learning environments. These systems do foster dialogue and collaboration, however, as Anderson (2009) indicates, a virtual learning environment which consists solely of students and teachers cannot profit from the benefits derived by a network because it lacks transparency of information and deep engagement between students and teachers (Bickford and Wright 2006).

In my own experience, virtual learning environments quickly become repositories of institutionally approved teaching materials and effectively discourage cooperation and interaction among students, fostering instead less meaningful, transactional interaction such as the setting or handing in of student work or the communication of assessment grades. Less often do students appear to willingly engage in more meaningful forms of cooperation such as peer review and assessment of each other’s work.

Dron and Anderson (2007) have suggested that individuals join social networks to “associate with others of like interest or vocation, or who know more, or who would like to learn similar things”. This contrasts sharply with schools’ imposition of learning management systems on their students. Wheeler (2010) points out that many students tend to avoid using the school-managed virtual learning environments because they either find it difficult to use, or irrelevant to their daily learning needs. It would appear then that a loose network of willing participants is better able to guarantee the commitment and engagement of the vast majority of our students. Having said that, there are also potential roadblocks and disadvantages that need to be explored to better understand the potential implementation of social media in schools.

Leach (2002) points out that teachers ought to exploit their pupils’ existing ICT knowledge and use the tools to which pupils are already accustomed. However, Mazer et al. (2007) have suggested that certain affordances of ICT, such as social networking sites, “can be a potential hazard for teachers as some applications allows users to communicate” and “the content can lead to discrediting or defamatory messages”.

Commercial social networking sites have often been accused of exposing young people to inappropriate content and turning them into victims of cyber-bullying, breaches of privacy and, in extreme cases, even of sexual predators. Trust and privacy are therefore seen to play a critical role when considering using social media in the school context (Griffith and Liyanage 2008). In addition, others point out that social networks can be used for “plagiarism, cheating, harassment and other types of academic and social misconduct” (Anderson 2009). Overall, a picture of risk and danger emerges. As Selwyn (2009) notes, the internet can place children at risk of harming themselves and others.

So, what began as an endorsement of technology as a catalyst for improved pedagogy in the classroom quickly turned into a cautionary tale when said technology allowed students – and teachers, for that matter – to begin to interact outside the classroom. The possibility of abuse, affecting both students and teachers, therefore emerges as the principal disadvantage of social networking sites versus the relative safety provided by the institutionally managed learning environment. However, as user behaviour can be modified and improved through guidance, training and modelling, I see this more as a temporary hurdle than an inherent disadvantage of the application of social media to the educational context.

What do you think? Your thoughts, comments and views are always very welcome. Please don’t hesitate to leave your two penneth as a comment, below.

Photo by Brett Jordan

References:

ANDERSON, T (2009) Social Networking. In MISHRA S (Ed) Stride Handbook 8 – E-Learning. IGNOU, pp 96-101 [Online] Available from http://webserver.ignou.ac.in/institute/STRIDE_Hb8_webCD/STRIDE_Hb8_index.html Accessed 18/12/2010

BICKFORD, D and WRIGHT, D (2006) Community: The hidden context of learning. In OBLINGER, D (Ed) Learning spaces. Educause, pp 40-61 [Online] Available from http://www.educause.edu/LearningSpaces Accessed 11/12/2010

BOYD, D. M., & ELLISON, N. B. (2007). ‘Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship’. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. [Online] Available from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html Accessed 22/08/2011

DRON, J., & ANDERSON, T. (2007). Collectives, Networks and Groups in Social Software for E-Learning. Paper presented at the Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education Quebec [Online] Available from http://www.editlib.org/index.cfm/files/paper_26726.pdf Accessed 18/12/2010

GRIFFITH, S, & LIYANAGE, L. (2008). An introduction to the potential of social networking sites in education. In I. Olney, G. Lefoe, J. Mantei & J. Herrington (Eds), Proceedings of the Second Emerging Technologies Conference 2008, pp. 76-81. Wollongong: University of Wollongong [Online] Available from http://educatingthefuturegp.co.uk/useful%20files/into%20to%20potential%20of%20social%20network%20sites.pdf Accessed 5/12/2010

LEACH, J. 2002. Teaching, learning and the digital age. In: B. MOON, A. SHELTON MAYES, S. HUTCHINSON (eds.) Teaching, learning and the curriculum in secondary schools. London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 142-164

MAZER, J. P., MURPHY R.E., & SIMMONDS, C.J. (2007) ‘I’ll see you on “Facebook”: The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate’. Communication Education, 56:1, 1- 17. [Online] Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03634520601009710 Accessed 1/06/2010

PAULSEN, M. F. (2008). Cooperative Online Education. Seminar Net, 4(2) [Online] Available from http://www.seminar.net/images/stories/vol4-issue2/paulsen_-_cooperative_online_education.pdf Accessed 18/12/2010

SELWYN, N. (2009) The digital native: myth and reality. ASLIB Proceedings, 61 (4). pp. 364-379. [Online] Available from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/00012530910973776 Accessed 3/06/2011

SHIRKY, C. (2008) Here comes everybody: How change happens when people come together. London: Penguin

WHEELER, S. (2010) “Anatomy of a PLE” in Learning with ‘e’s [Online] Available from http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2010/07/anatomy-of-ple.html Accessed 11/07/2010

The use of online social networking in education – in its widest sense – is an often maligned and, in my view, misunderstood topic which engenders strong reactions both in its favour and against. The picture above depicts movable type from a printing press. The printing press analogy is often used to illustrate the enormous impact that the internet is having in our society and civilisation.

Just like Gutenberg revolutionised the sharing of ideas when he invented the movable type printing press around 1440, the internet has revolutionised the way we communicate today. Today communication is instantaneous and, as more and more devices allow us to communicate more and more information, we have entered an era of information on demand.

The rising importance and availability of online social networks and their popularity among young people are undeniable facts. The use of the internet is becoming an ever more integral part of young people’s lives and, as a result, they are communicating with each other on an unprecedented scale.

In my view, pedagogy needs to reflect these social changes and conform to the needs and expectations of today’s young people. Using ICT with a focus on the C for Communication allows us to bring the learning online and to blend the use of traditional tools such as textbooks or dictionaries with more up-to-date, relevant and authentic multimedia materials from the web.

Online social networks provide teachers and students with a platform in which they can interact beyond the constraints of the school walls, and with which the teacher can provide personalised feedback and support.

In this post, I aim to challenge preconceptions regarding the use of online social networking in education and to provide an alternative, more positive discourse highlighting the many benefits modern means of communication can bring to education.

As a people, we have a tradition of failing to grasp the transformational impact of innovation and we have often assumed that particular innovations are useless, pernicious or here-today-gone-tomorrow fads.

Douglas Adams hypothesised that…

“…anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

His is a brilliant encapsulation of the feeling countless generations of parents have felt when confronted by the new and unnatural ways of their children. Teachers and schools are not exempt form the occasional lack of insight: when erasers were first attached to the end of pencils teachers believed they would encourage laziness and were often banned in schools. Exactly the same thing happened a few years later when pocket calculators first became affordable.

In fact, we see the same process happening today when disruptive technologies show up in our classrooms, and for the same reasons by and large. The problem is that, whether we realise it or not, the internet isn’t going anywhere.

Like erasers on pencils, calculators in pockets, talking movies and colour photography – both the latter were criticised for somehow detracting from the aesthetic beauty of their forerunners – the internet is here to stay.

The Prensky school of thought distinguishes between digital natives and digital immigrants – that is, those of us who grew up with modern technology and those who didn’t. In my view, this dichotomy is misleading and is unfortunately often used to justify poor pedagogy by promoting the notion that teachers are not able to learn about or understand the new technologies their students use.

Personally, I don’t think teachers are innately incapable of understanding new technologies. The problem is rather one of attitudes: teachers, by and large, still remain pedagogically unconvinced of the benefits the internet is able to bring to their classrooms, fear relinquishing control and see the classroom implementation of new technologies as a capitulation to what they perceive as a lack of discipline and academic rigour, wrongly assuming that they can have technology or rigour, but not both at once.

In contrast to these, more reactionary views, stands an alternative model which promises the delivery of innovative teaching practice: realising that we are learners as well as a teachers and being open to have our beliefs challenged. As Steve Wheeler very aptly put it recently, there is no them and us: “we are in this together”.

However, those of us considering the use of social networking tools are often discouraged by sensationalist horror stories in the media. Sadly, the teacher-got-the-sack-because-of-Facebook headline is all too common and, as a consequence, most schools and teachers have decided that online social networking sites are not worth the trouble.

Am I saying that it is ok to be friends with pupils on Facebook? Let’s answer that clearly: no, it isn’t. Your private life should remain private. Being friends with pupils on Facebook is not ok as it exposes you and your pupils to unacceptable risks.

That is not to say, however, that we shouldn’t use Facebook to enhance teaching and learning – by establishing school or departmental pages, for example – or, indeed, that we should tarnish all the internet’s potential for social interaction with the same brush.

The vast majority of teachers using online social networking tools manage to do so perfectly appropriately, pedagogically soundly and safely, improving learning outcomes as a result. Sadly, they seldom hit the headlines for these reasons.

Bullying is totally unacceptable wherever it occurs. It sometimes occurs online. However, my pupils tell me that they are much more likely to be bullied on the school bus than they are on social networking sites. They tell me that insults and nasty name calling are much more likely to occur in school corridors and classrooms than it is on Facebook. However, I am yet to know of any school that has banned travelling on school buses or gathering in groups while in school as a result of the threat of bullying.

It remains perplexing to me that schools have generally reacted by blocking social networking sites and social media, effectively abandoning children to learn about their use on their own, without our guidance and without appropriate models of good practice.

In a way, as everyone who has left a classroom full of 14 year olds on their own for five minutes knows, the surprising thing is perhaps that social networking is, by and large, a positive addition to our student’s lives by their own admission.

Just imagine how much better it could be if we guided our students rather than leaving them to their own devices. It’s time to stop blocking. It’s time to educate. That’s what we’re here for.

We are very good a building walls and compartmentalising our lives, and not just at a figurative level. We build actual walls, like our schools’ walls, but also virtual walls, like the firewalls that we impose on our pupils.

Traditionalist approaches to institutionalised education have continued to assume that knowledge can only be obtained within the school’s walls. Modern technology has shattered this notion and has presented us with a different paradigm: the information is everywhere.

Handling all this information has suddenly become one of the most precious skills we can hope to pass on to our students. How teachers and schools react and adapt to this new paradigm will bear direct consequences in the future success of their pupils, for remembering facts and figures will not be as important to them in their lives as being able to successfully acquire, manipulate and exploit information.

Learning from one another is one of the deepest forms of learning our students ever experience. When effectively implemented, online social networking allows our students to continue learning from one another, under our guidance, beyond the school’s walls.

Social networking can be used to knock down the school’s walls and bridge the gap between home and school, but first we need to knock down the firewalls.

Everything you could possibly want to know, for better or for worse, is only a few clicks away. The internet has changed the rules of the game. We can now watch films on demand, read books on demand, listen to radio programmes and podcasts on demand.

We need to embrace a new philosophy of learning on demand.

The children in this photograph are so poor they don’t even have a classroom. But don’t let your prejudices mislead you. What you are seeing is innovative. Which is not to say new: some of the ideas you see implemented in this photograpgh are almost a century old.

John Dewey, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, among others, developed the concept of children learning from one another and learning by doing. Some exceptional schools and individuals have, through the years, succesfully implemented these ideas, but most have continued with teacher-centred strategies as they have found this philosophy difficult to implement in reality.

But our reality has changed.

The internet – with its social networking and communication – provides us with a way to evolve teaching and learning to a level that better matches our 21st century students’ needs as well as their expectations – although it may be pretty standard for you, you can understand that a child born in the year 2000 might consider writing a letter a bit old-fashioned.

By putting the children first, we can then begin to imagine a new pedagogy in which teaching and learning are upside-down, focusing on the needs of the children, rather than those of the adults tasked with their schooling.

A child’s imagination is boundless. Just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a child and imagine. Imagine new possibilities.

And while you’re at it, keep reminding yourself that your job is not just to teach, but also to ensure learning happens.

Your views are always welcome and your comment is very much appreciated.

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