Blogs and twitter are interesting tools for disseminating information quickly and sharing thoughts, ideas, and topics. One of the reasons that I love twitter is because there is information about everything, quickly organized with hashtags, where anyone can follow and participate in a conversation. This makes it a valuable tool for education. A specific hashtag or a tweet at the instructor allows students to ask questions and participate in a discussion in a large classroom or distance learning setting. Twitter can shrink the size of the classroom essentially, by allowing many participants voice, where in a normal setting there would not be time for each student to be heard. Schools are starting to see twitter and instant message text programs as a way for students to communicate with other students, faculty, and others discussing the same ideas as they are. This is discussed in the 2009 Horizon Report: The K12 Edition about how this is potentially something that can enhance learning for students and how educators are starting to view these technologies differently.
Blogging is valuable because it allows an individual to freely and publicly share information, ideas, or values on any topic. Blogs range from food and recipes to video games to book or movie reviews to information about breast health and cancer screenings. Blogs can be used in an educational setting to share information, allow for a group discussion, to allow students to practice writing and sharing their ideas publicly, and in a variety of other ways.
When it comes to sharing, like in any other format, we still need to be careful about what we say. The internet gives a feeling of anonymity, but consequences can follow into the digital world. There are several potential legal issues that come from blogging of which any future blogger needs to be aware. This brings up complicated legal issues that would mirror that of any print or spoken format. In this case a student quoted a professor, but this goes both ways. An educator, who quotes a student opens themselves up to potential legal, ethical, or professional issues.
On Twitter, blogs, and any other digital medium - it is important to remember to be a professional, that what you say should be grounded in fact, and that you only say what you would say in person. A professor of mine at Kent State recently posted about the cold spell that Kent experienced. He wrote this on his Facebook, and the local Akron Beacon Journal picked it up and included it in their story. Had he exaggerated or spoken in a way that was less than he would have in person, his reputation could have been tarnished. The newspaper story made no mention that this was a Facebook comment and it was written to appear more like an interview quote.
Follow what interests you, but be aware of associations that you would not want being public. On Facebook, Twitter, and many other sites - it is possible to see who or what a person likes/follows. On Twitter, I follow a variety of individuals/organizations/news sites. I follow the BBC, the local news stations, NOAA, a variety of national and state parks, the USGS, AAG, a local gardening club, recipe sites, crafting companies/blogs, my university, and many others. However if I have a public profile (and many people do not know how to edit all of the settings to ensure they are private) and I follow a pornographic, racist, or otherwise offensive website - that is linked to my name and my reputation. Because of that we have to behave online as we would in person and professionally.
I could not agree with you more that twitter is great because of how it is organized. I love the use of hashtags to be able to follow and participate in conversations. Prior to this class I had a Twitter account but no idea on how to use it. The use of Hashtags by teachers or professors can definitely engage students in a way that a typical classroom cannot. The ability to allow multiple students to be heard in a limited setting is essential. Since twitter only allows 140 characters per tweet student really have to think before they post a comment. I think this makes students get to the point faster. Also, in the video Tweets for Education I found the book that students wrote very interesting. In order for students to write this book they all had to think about their section of the book. Each student had to keep their part of their story 140 characters long. I believe that this type of learning fosters student’s creativity and critical thinking.
ReplyDeleteI believe that blogging is very valuable. From this class we learned that what is news to one person may not be news to the next person. So I might find a blog on food and recipes very useful and informative but I would not find a blog on video games useful at all. Blogging is instant news. I am going to start reading blogs more because the news is coming from people who first hand experienced the news. I believe that blogging makes news more informative and faster than what can be provided via the TV or newspaper.
I never thought about the potential legal, ethical or professional issues that come along with blogging. Since the web is so open to the public if something is posted that shouldn’t by the time that it is taken down generally the public already saw it and it is out on the web forever. The article NYU Professor Stifles Blogging, Twittering by Journalism Student offers a unique stands on how blogging is seen. Reading this article and seeing the controversy that it brought on for the student who wrote about her professor leads me to question websites such as www.ratemyprofessor.com. I am curious to know if professors see this site as a privacy issue. Also, had the student wrote a glowing recommendation how the reaction would have differed or what the reaction would have been had the student blogged this anonymously. I had the unique experience of writing for a campus newspaper when I was in my undergrad. We talked about ethically what was and were not appropriate to write about. If there was news that was negative at the university we still had to write about it regardless of how the university would have been seen. Even though the newspaper was funded by the university they could not take funding by what the reports wrote about. I am guessing that now this the use of blogs this would extend to the online content as well. If I was reporting a news story such as this one in the article for the newspaper ethically I may have taken a different angle. From the ethics courses that I have taken I would have reported more on the university as a whole not being up to date on their teaching of technology not just calling out one professor. It is possible that the curriculum that the professor is teaching is what the university is requiring for students. Also, there comes the question of the class being technology for Generation Y not the millennial generation. I think that there is a lot of gray area when it comes to this situation just like in newspapers. When it comes to ethics you always have to be careful about what you say and or do both on blogs and on twitter. I think this could make for another unique topic in the classroom. Students can be taught effectively about the ethical line. This is not something that is generally taught I believe in classes besides communication classes. Perhaps this should be built into the K-12 school system or a college 101 course. If technology is being used more and students are expected to know how to use it they should know all aspects of the programs. They should know the risks and to what details they can and cannot release.
I also believe that you should also follow what interests you. I do not use the follow feature as much as I should. Know that I know how to officially use it I may start following more people. I would be interested to hear about the club recipe sites and crafting companies that you follow.
ReplyDeleteThe thought that Twitter could, "shrink the size of classroom" is kind of disturbing in a way. It is possible that teachers within large classrooms could rely too much on online resources to help supplement a classroom instead of using in class time to do so. As teachers, we could being using these online sources to ease our work and possibly giving the students busy work instead of taking valuable in class time to teach. It is true that online sources allow for students to speak to one another with ease, and it is possible that teachers could respond to students' work a lot quicker than with paper assignments.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are a beneficial resource to do their simplicity and how each blogger could make their blog central around one or many ideas. I agree with how you see blogs being used within the classroom. As an ESL teacher, allowing my students to practice writing on multiple writing formats such as in class or online allows my students to learn diverse types of writing styles, and what is appropriate for online posts and what is appropriate for in class writing. Considering that ESL students could find using blog writing as a useful learning tool, it is very well possible this could be true for native English students. Online posts also push students to conscientiously decide what they are putting online is appropriate or not.
Considering that what a student posts online for a class could come back to hurt them puts a lot of pressure on teachers' shoulders to be ensuring that students are learning the rules and possible legalities that could affect them. I completely agree with you on the fact that when using online sources when need to be professional. It amazes me that anything we say online could be taken and used for other media sources such as the experience you had with one of your professors. If anything we say online is taken out of context, it does not matter what we originally said. It can be held against us and people may end up viewing us in a different light.
Not only do our online posts create potential harm for ourselves, but as you stated the things we follow. At times I forget the simple things I follow on Twitter and think nothing of could potentially harm my reputation as you stated. It is sad to think that something that we follow thinking would be funny could affect a future job opportunity. I like how you ended your post because it is very true. We do need to act online as we would in a professional position.