We cannot talk about Web 2.0 without addressing the issue of privacy. Many of us have had the experience of talking about a product and then being inundated with ads for that product on our phones. If we are to look for ways to incorporate social media into education, especially on the K-12 level, we need to figure out how to maintain the privacy of our students. I grew up in the era of stranger danger. My parents and I had a safe word in case they needed to send someone to pick me up from school. Houses in the neighborhood had signs in the window that showed kids where to run in case of danger. The internet expands the world, but with that comes the danger of exposing students to people outside of their neighborhood that might not have their best interest at heart. The problem is you can't put all the demons back into Pandora's Box. So how do we tame the demons and make them work for us?
I have been struggling with our upcoming knowledge sharing assignment. I think the problem is that I have too many big ideas. I want my students to all have access to the internet. I want my kids to all be fluent. I want them to know how to do all the things. In an ideal world, I would be able to go into my classroom on day one and incorporate every tool that we learned about in this class. I want all of these thing and I want them right now! Here's the problem. I have to do the work. If I want my big ideas to work, I have to start small. The problem is that small sometimes feels too small. I always want to put my spin on it, to try and make it my own. For me, curating and sharing the content of other people feels a little dishonest. Even when you give credit, someone is getting the idea from you and they might attribute it to you. I am much more comfortable sharing something verbally, than I am sharing something in a online space. I am starting to understand that sharing c...
I have this conversation with my teenage children so often, almost to the point they really don't trust social media! Social media can be such a useful tool, but there's always those out there turn useful tools into a means to destroy individuals. It seem to boil down to going back to basics, the "don't talk to strangers" aspect of social media.
ReplyDelete