by David Warlick
In my presentations, I frequently show a video that my son produced a couple of years ago. It is an impressive blend, or re-mix, of images, sound, and live video. When the show is over, I proclaim to my audience that "I didn't teach him how to do that," and that I know his high school teachers, and "I know they didn't teach him how to do that." He learned to produce video by being connected to a vast social network and knowing how to find people who can help him learn what he needs to know, to do what he needs to do.
That social networks are potent learning environments is clear to anyone who uses them, has observed their use, or thought openly about them. Safety issues, while important, are addressable – through a combination of technical safeguards and the advent of education-oriented social networks developed specifically for classroom use. Curriculum issues, however, will require enormous imagination on the part of professional and practiced educators.
A principal difference between social network environments and the traditional classroom is in their flatness. Classrooms are places where content and skills are delivered, often relying on the force of gravity as we move information from a high place to a low place, if I might borrow from the theme of The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. Social networks are flat. They are places of conversation, not delivery. In a social network:
• Work is turned in to the class for assessment, not just to the teacher.
• Students collaborate and learn with peers in other parts of the world.
• Teachers learn from each other, researching, reflecting, collaborating, and sharing their experiences -- growing their knowledge of teaching and learning together.
• Students are motivated to read and write, because it stops being reading and writing, and becomes a conversation.
Using social networks as instructional environments requires that we think about our classrooms as flat places that respect learners as active participants in their education and the instructional value of conversations between participants.
David Warlick is a 30-year educator, public speaker, author, blogger, and programmer, living in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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