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I am a librarian at Cal Poly Pomona. I have an M.S. in library and information science and an M.A. in English. This weblog reflects my interests in library & information science, literature, language, culture, and the arts. Click for my full profile.
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The Economist debates the use of social networking in education (3/20/2008) Back in January the Economist.com hosted an Oxford style debate on the proposition, "social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom." Ewan McIntosh argued for the affirmative, and Michael Bugeja argued for the opposition. My own position is somewhere in between, reflected in Nancy Willard's featured guest comments: We ... need to be more precise. When we talk about social networking in schools do we mean students using MySpace, Facebook or Bebo? Or do we mean using interactive technologies that provide for rapid communication and have changed the way we preserve, update, retrieve, acquire, and disseminate knowledge? When I talk about the opportunities, I am obviously talking about the latter. But when people hear "social networking in school" they frequently think the former. Commercial sites are not appropriate for routine use in an educational environment because they are for entertainment purposes. However, it may be very appropriate to access these sites from time to time when the material is educationally relevant. But it does not appear that these technologies are impairing the social interactions of young people ... Most young people using these technologies are increasing their social interactions, not decreasing. The bottom line is that we have to prepare young people for life in their future, not our past. And their future is social networking. On a related note, check out SciTechNet, a blog that focuses on social networking services in the sciences and technology. Recent links include MyExperiment.org and 2collab.com. |
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Copyright 2003-2008 Julie Shen