I guess I am supposed to write about social networking, my feelings on it, where I have used it and what the implications are in academics. First of all, I was really negative about social networking, mainly because I did not know that much about it and that I am afraid of technology. This is because I am afraid of change, and technology is changing the world including academics. Social networking includes many ways of bring people and ideas together on the web. Whether is is blogging or wikis or podcasts or others ways in which people connect online. I have never had a blog until this class or knew what a wiki was. In the past I have read other people's blogs and like reading articles online as well as emailing, but that was far as I got. Now, withy my blog and my soon to be wiki, I can communicate with people from all over the world but mainly my friends that I want to connect with online that live far away.
Social netwokring online is great in society and for businesses. It does scare me a little with education because of the change it will bring into the classroom. The positive implications are that students can communicate with eachother, the teacher, other students from different parts of the country and their parents through class portals, online filing cabinets, E-portfolios and other ways in which they can connect. Podcasts can help teachers with lectures and review for class tests and missing class. And class wikis and blogs can help them connect for time convenience and other reasons. However, some of the negative implications are that if everyone is online people may not have a reason to go to class if they can get the podcast online for example. There are many colleges that have classes completely online, which I find unfortunate because students will miss working with eachother or knowing eachother in person. You can miss so much if you are just watching a video or listening to somone talk online. The class dynmics are part of learning and without that, I fear some of the learning will decrease.
I especially am concerned about online classes and online colleges or universities because my passion and future I hope will be in student involvement. Without classes on campuses students will have no reason to come to campus and therefore my job and future will not be needed. So much of education is on campus and involvement and without they will be missing something even though they will have the degree.
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5 comments:
I agree with you to a point about wanting to have face to face interactions with students and less interaction online, however, I think that more and more the skill the need to succeed in a career is the ability to communicate and interact online. My hope is that eventually there will be an obvious balance between the two.
I'm like you, Heather. I'm new to all this technology and frankly, I'm concerned that the direction we're heading, albeit, is efficient and exciting, is leading down a path of social seclusion. I enjoy the face to face interaction in the classroom. I don't believe that we've invented anything that can fully replace that. I'm all for using this technology to help us become more efficient or even to communicate with larger audiences. I think that we need to be very careful about technology becoming the standard for replacing more traditional communication inside and outside the classroom.
Ben,
There HAS to be a balance. Yes, educators will need to meet the needs of the millenials (and their learning styles), but from my experience, traditional corporations are resistant to such a significant pardigm shift - recall this is still rather new to many companies.
That being said, change is a'coming... we will need to embrace change while helping those who follow understand and appreciate existing structures.
I think everyone gets frustrated with technology on some level. You hit it on the head that it is change to what you are used to. I think that it is easier for younger kids that grew up with myspace and facebook than for people who didn't. It is also frustrating trying to troubleshoot on your own with computer stuff because sometimes if you are not familiar you don't even know where to start.
Hey Heather,
I've got to tell you, I think you're about to tap a hidden world. You're verbal comments express feelings. Sometimes you'll blurt something out if you're not real hip on it and other times when you elaborate, it's much deeper. That's one of the things I like so much about you. This is why I would peg you for one who would really go for this social media. Look at your blog, it's the most well written of any others in the class and it goes deeper with serious thought about blogging. If you just made this crap up, you should go into PR. Nice job.
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