Myspace & Schools = BFF?

Some schools ban social networks for wasting classroom time or to protect students from weirdos. But, as part of a wider trend toward less top-down teaching, other institutions are putting tools like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook on the curriculum — and teachers are saying: “Thanks for the add.”

Recent efforts to outlaw the Web 2.0 sites so beloved by teenagers include a congressional bill that would throttle funds to schools that do not restrict access. But Elgg, open-source social networking software developed at the University of Brighton, has been designed specifically with academic uses in mind.

Students, tutors and researchers each get a profile page, a blog, photo sharing and friends lists, and they can create and join on-site discussion communities. Some of these features might cause tutors to balk, but Elgg’s creators say the collaborative, conversational exchanges in which today’s students have become so fluent outside class are the best way to deliver learning inside it.

“The virtual learning environment model used by nearly all universities these days is based on the traditional tutor-led, course-structured mode of learning and doesn’t easily allow for significant participation by students or for crossing course boundaries,” said Stan Stanier, the school’s learning technologies manager, who oversees a 33,000-member Elgg installation. “Higher education is meant to be an environment for student-centered and collaborative learning.”

Broadly, Elgg represents a shift from aging, top-down classroom technologies like Blackboard to what e-learning practitioners call personal learning environments — mashup spaces comprising del.icio.us feeds, blog posts, podcast widgets — whatever resources students need to document, consume or communicate their learning across disciplines.

The idea is spreading. Freely downloadable, Elgg now powers networks set up by nearly 50 schools and colleges around the world, including a particularly active rollout at Universidade de São Paolo in Brazil. In a country where social networking usually means finding a date using orkut, São Paolo’s Stoa builds relationships between groups of physicists, literature students and others.

Don’t Tell Your Parents: Schools Embrace MySpace -

Wow. That’s an interesting turn of events.  Very proactive. Tackle the problem as a group and teach hands on.  I’d love to know if this works or worsens the situation.

The Cyber of Cyberbullying

Danah Boyd writers (in her blog, please check it out, link below):

I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with conversations about ‘cyberbullying.’ I fear that by emphasizing ‘cyber’ the term clouds what’s really going on. Don’t get me wrong - the internet, like all technologies before it, has altered the dynamics of bullying, but why didn’t my generation of ‘telebullying’? Three-way calling allowed people to bully from home with others virtually present for the attacks. Of course, i know the answer to that… bullying over the internet is not just a technological advance of bullying, but an advance that makes the attacks visible to adults.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that bullying that takes place in mediated publics (blogs, social network sites, etc.) and through private messaging in a surveilled computer (IM, email, etc.) is visible to adults in ways that note-passing, bathroom-wall-scribbling, and phone bullying just aren’t. And most kids are smart enough to do physical bullying outside of the view of adults, but a huge amount of physical bullying takes place at school where adults are nearby: recess, bathroom, school bus, under the bleachers at games, school carpark, etc.
In some senses, i’m glad that adults can see what terrible things take place amongst peer groups, but i’m unbelievably frustrated by how most of those adults emphasize the CYBER rather than the BULLYING. It’s as if the internet is the cause of the bullying. **The internet does not cause bullying, but it does MIRROR and MAGNIFY bullying.

** [This article goes on, please read the remainder on Danah's site.]

apophenia

For all of you interested in cyberbullying– I ask you to read Danah Boyd’s blog. It’s a great perspective from someone fully immersed in the study of social interactions by youth online.

I know Cyberbullying is such a hot, tender subject. An epidemic with the eye of mordor bearing down (and rightfully so)… but I completely agree with everything Danah has to say.

Cyberbullying does have many ties to home-life for kids. It isn’t the cyberbullying we need to be paranoid with– but the actions and choices of our children. Be at home. Be supportive. Be a parent.

Great article, Danah!