Week 3 - Blog Posting #6 -Communities of Practice

A few months ago, I was posting on Twitter (like just about everyone else on the site) about what I was doing--which at that moment, was trying to purge some spammy comments from several of the networks I belong to on the social networking portal, Ning.com. I posted an update something like "[what is] up with spam on the Ning pages? Anyone else seeing this? #ning". Within an hour, I received a DM (direct message) from a representative at Ning asking me to email her details about the spam, with a promise that she would look into it. It was the first time that social networking had introduced me to a new type of "customer service", one that was at first a little creepy (after all, I didn't actually seek resolution from anyone at Ning directly), but ultimately refreshing: companies and businesses ARE listening to their consumers.

Chris Brogan, a consultant who (according to his blog) advises "businesses, organizations, and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value" (Brogan 2009) writes very eloquently (and prolifically) about how businesses need to "grow bigger ears" and "start by listening". It should come as no surprise, then, that many of the more progressive (and successful) corporations such as Starbucks, JetBlue, and Dell have been using

Twitter to reach out to their consumers for some time now (Twitter Brand Index 2008).
While business is just now "getting" the power of social media, it still boggles my mind how so many teachers, administrators and other stakeholders in the educational community are terrified of it. I'm still trying to figure out why...
Well, we certainly wouldn't want school to be too much like the business world, would we? :)



Brogan, C. (2008, November 22). If I Started Today [Web log post]. Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://www.chrisbrogan.com/if-i-started-today/

Twitter Brand Index. (2008, August 08). Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://blog.fluentsimplicity.com/twitter-brand-index/

Week 3 - Blog Posting #5 -Social Media

Social media has impacted the way many of interact on many levels: how we communicate with friends, how we interact among ourselves and with instructors in schools, and how we collaborate and exchange ideas and market in the business world. This shift has impacted not only the digital natives and "millenials", but affected all age groups: grandparents adding grandchildren on their Myspace friends list, professors and students on Twitter, co-workers sharing LinkedIn connections (and searching Facebook to screen prospective hires).
Karl Fisch's "Did You Know" series of videos, which began to circulate on the internet in 2007, highlighted some of the staggering facts surrounding the rapid adoption of the internet and its communication pathways such as social media. The technology has evolved so rapidly that the video contineus to be updated regularly, with its most recent iteration (see above), version 4.0, surfacing in mid-2009.
When Twitter.com was launched, critics scoffed, calling it an unnecessary addition to the many other means for people to update on the web, asking, "[what are you doing]..who cares?"(Lawley 2007). However, less than three years later, people look to twitter much in the same way they once looked to broadcast news and later, internet search engines. Microsoft's newest search engine, Bing, now integrates twitter search; this year's litany of high-profile and celebrity deaths were searchable on twitter and Wikipedia before news stations like CNN were announcing them to the public.

The community is talking, and the community is listening. The community is winning.

Fisch, K. (Director). (2007, November 01). Did You Know? Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K04o2ic4g-A

Lawley, L. (2007, March 06). Thoughts on twitter [Web log post]. Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://many.corante.com/archives/2007/03/06/thoughts_on_twitter.php

Week 2 - Blog Posting #4 -21st Century Skills & Lifelong Learning

I definitely agree with Prensky's suggestion (2001) that students have to "power down" at school because of the way that most content is delivered. I have observed it myself working with students over the last few years. While we as teachers can find many more current ways to deliver content, promote communication, and administer assessments digitally, one of the biggest challenges is still inspiring students to simply enjoy learning. Cultivating a love of learning at a young age is something individuals can carry with them throughout their lives, and help them to evolve into lifelong learners.

An interesting report entitled Voices of Students on Engagement (Yazzie-Mintz 2006) suggested that students felt that school was not "intellectually challeging" (as opposed to "academically challenging") and the researchers attribute that sentiment to a feeling of lack of engagement. Note the following statistics that the researchers reported:

Engagement is about interaction; 21st century learning modalities promote this interaction. When used in conjunction with education, social networks, blogs, photo sharing sites, microblogs (such as Twitter) and online discussion forums all demand more interaction, and therefore can result more engagement.

While the older teachers that Prensky refers to as "digital immigrants", i.e. those who didn't grow up with the internet, adoption of these technologies may be slower but the results (with regard to engagement) can be comparable. A study conducted by Tomorrow.org (2007) addressed online learning trends in both students and teachers, and found that teachers were growing more and more interesting in participating in online staff development and coursework:



In my "perfect world", teachers will begin to accept and embrace the power of 21st century learning strategies, and by using them to continue to be lifelong learners, will model for their students how to be lifelong learners themselves.

References:

Learning in the 21st century: a trends update. (Rep.). (2007, Fall). Retrieved September 12, 2009, from Project Tomorrow website: http://tomorrow.org

Prensky, M. (2001, October). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/

Yazzie-Mintz, E. (2006). High School Survey of Student Engagement (Rep.). Retrieved September 09, 2009, from Indiana University School of Education website: http://ceep.indiana.edu/hssse/

Is social media a fad?

Watch this video, then we'll discuss.

(Watch it on YouTube here)
(I'm just posting this for my classmates, not as an official class assignment)