Future of Education

There is an article in todays Columbus Dispatch titled A-Twitter over youths.

Bob Evans is looking past the farm to bridge the digital divide between its traditional customer base and the tech-savvy younger crowd it also wants to reach.

To help, the Columbus-based restaurant and food-products company has entrusted a new marketing campaign to an Ohio University student-run public-relations firm. The students will help it create pages on Facebook and Twitter to reach younger consumers.

(If anyone is not familiar with Bob Evans, it is a large restaurant chain based out of Columbus, Ohio)

The business world is moving into social media. What about education? The question arises, does Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks have a place in education? Should teachers have Facebook pages?

In Ohio, Ohio Education Association has made public statements to teachers to delete Facebook pages if they have them.  To me this is another example of a knee jerk reaction in education. Someone, somewhere has used it inappropriately, so instead of educating the masses how to use the tool properly, we are going to tell them to stop using it and use our filters to block it at school.

Students are going to use social networks no mater what we do. It is part of our society. So isn’t it the roll of schools, in conjunction with parents, to teach students how to use the tools responsibly and effectively? How can you teach a student to use a tool in which you don’t know how to use yourself. For me, I’m not going to stop using it. I see a huge benefit to my social network and my online professional network. I would say I gain as much knowledge from these groups as I ever have from any other source in my life. As important to the knowledge I gain, it the fun I have participating.

As you ponder my words and thoughts, you might follow it up with Will Richardson’s most recent post that talks about students use of social networks and their learning. It includes some interesting findings from a recent study by the MacAuthor Foundation.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 2:28 pm and is filed under education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.