next-ed

A few unpredictable things have happened to me in my interactions with kids lately, and all of them point in one direction: my students are conservative and risk-averse. Sure, what they do on the weekends may be an entirely different kettle of cetaceans, but as learners and social beings they seem, well, prudish.

First, we ask students about their politics, they say they have none, but ask them to take a stand on political issues, and they begin to lean further and further to the right.
Second, we asked the students what changes they’d like to see in the school rules. They want stricter, clearer rules with punishments that modify behaviour!
Third, I offered all of our new college leaders access to social media tools to manage their profiles in the college, create networks and spread good news about their work. What do you think happened?
Nothing.
Awkward silence.
Then came the type of skepticism you’d expect from end-of-career teachers, retired on active duty. The students said “Whoa, that’s a bit too risky in the school environment!” One student said “That couldn’t work”, another just asked “What for?”
So the real question is, in the face of the social media megalopolis – what is it the students don’t get?
I think the answer is, nobody is teaching these kids how to use powerful tools.
If I asked all of the MySpace, Facebook and Twitter users in my school “How could these tools improve your learning?” they would not know where to start.
Hey, it’s St Mary’s… maybe we should just start another club!

I have had enough of the moral panic engendered by people who see MySpace, Bebo, Facebook and others as the doorway to danger for children.  I heard a school leader a few weeks ago say to a school staff “We’ve had some bullying which started online, so tell your students not to use MySpace at all”.  Many teachers nodded their heads in shared concern for this creeping social cancer of the 21st Century, others (myself included) were dumbfounded by such naivety… and while we are at it, we’ll get them to stop using mobile phones, and that evil television will need to go too!

This school holidays I will be making my own Facebook site.

Here is my TO DO list for schools and teachers to prepare the way for the positive application of Social Networking in a learning context:

1. Teachers – get a Facebook account now! If you don’t know how, ask your kids.
2. Use your Facebook account for your own personal life, hobbies, friends and interests.  Encourage your friends and family to join and link to your site.
3. Use your Facebook account to organise a real world event – like a family picnic, a party or a project.
4. Tell your students you have a Facebook site – (of course, there is no need to invite them as friends)
5. Investigate with your students the risks of social networking
6. Place these risks in the cultural context of your school (mine is a Catholic school, so we would place these issues in a context of peace, dignity, justice and Christian ethics)
7. Develop with your students (and your school) an Online Charter – publish this to parents and the commuity
8. Invite parents to participate in the development of the Charter
9. Have students and parents sign a contract (including parents consent) based on the charter
10. Implement a learning project which is values based and uses social networking as the medium for collaboration and publication.

One of my teachers (of whom I am very proud) taught a project where students developed a MySpace site for the Blessed Virgin Mary, as if she were a contemporary young woman.  Her characteristics and values had to be expressed through design, content, text and the selection of music, images and ‘friends’.  The students, naturally, thought this was very cool!

I’ll keep you posted on the progress of my Facebook site – defnitely a power for good!