Session Description: What does it look like in your school or district? Is social networking used for educating students? Supporting teachers? For communication with the greater school community? Is it forbidden? What are the risks and the benefits? Come discuss ways of saying YES to powerful new technologies without sacrificing safety or security.TechForum Social Networking Intro

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"Right now we are in the middle of a very polarized public discourse about kids use of digital media..." | Connie Yowell YouTube

"You encounter ChatRoulette..."

"Are we necessarily opposed to new technologies or more comfortable with old ways of doing things?"

Social networking: The process of connecting and interacting with people through social media...140 character discourses in Twitter, posting on a Wall, , creating a video response to someone in YouTube.

Social media: any form of media that resides in social spaces and promotes social interaction or results from that interaction. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Wikis, del.icio.us, Etherpad, YouTube.

Social Networking TechForum

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Questions:

How connected are you? Characterize your own personal networking: Do you have a 1) Twitter account 2) Facebook account 3) blogger 4) regularly read blogs in a reader such as Google Reader or Bloglines?

Characterize your school environment: 1) mp3/iPods, 2) open wireless, 3) bring your own tools, 4) student cell phones and 5) social media [YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook]

What are your perceptions of "social networking?" Is there a better representation of the activity that is more appropriate for schools? When you say social networking to parents, what do they think of?

What does it mean to be well-educated in the 21st Century? What kind of experiences do you want your students to have, what types of learning spaces do you want, what is your vision of learning? Do the elements of social networking represent skills that contribute to a new and shifting definition of what it means to be literate?

What are we really talking about? What skills are embedded in social networking?

How do we scale this?

What role does social networking play in teaching and learning within the formal space of schools? Will they do this on their own? Do we have the responsibility to prepare them? Can we help shape their digital personas? What is the added value of such technology? Describe a learning space where networking plays a critical role.

In your school district, is networking recognized a methodology that can be used within the process of professional learning?

New Channels of Learning and the Free Agent Learner?

"The “spaces” where students learn are becoming more community-driven, interdisciplinary, and supported by technologies that engage virtual communication and collaboration. This changing
concept of the learning environment has clear implications for schools." (Executive Summary, Horizon Project 2010 K-12 Edition) and...

"This has meant that digitally literate young people have come to understand that there are at least two living channels for learning - 1) an institutional channel, and 2) a peer-driven, interest-driven, and unregulated digital media channel. The bifurcation of learning experiences for young people is bound to call the institutional identification of schooling and learning into question in the coming years. We don't yet know the consequences of how this shift will play out, but unless schools figure out how to adapt to digital media our children may end up hearing their fathers say "remember when we went to school for an education?" (Rich Halverson, interview with Henry Jenkins) and...

"Many activities related to learning andeducation take place outside the walls of the classroom — but these experiences are often undervalued or unacknowledged. Beyond the classroom walls, students can take advantage of online resources, explore ideas and practice skills using games and other programs they may have on systems at home, and interact with their extensive — and constantly available— social networks. Within the classroom, learning that incorporates real life experiences like these is not occurring enough and is too often undervalued when it does take place. This challenge is an important one in K-12 schools,it results in a lack of engagement in learning on the part of students who are seeking some connection between their world, their own
lives, and their experience in school." (Horizon Report 2010 K-12 Edition)

Rather, the Free Agent Learner...
Learner characteristics accurately depict the way many of today’s students are approaching learning. For thesestudents the schoolhouse, the teacher and the textbook no longer have an exclusive monopoly on knowledge, content or even the education process, and therefore, it should not be surprising that students are leveraging a wide range of learning resources, tools, applications, outside experts and each other to create a personalized learning experience that may or may not include what is happening in the classroom.

Mimi Ito: "Students engage in friendship and interest-based activities ("self-directed learning around their passions" from here. Examples are gaming, online writing [Fan Fiction], and video editing.) During this they become fluent in online communication, use of digital media, posting, linking, forwarding, and remixing. There is a social layer, and a technical media layer. Parents may not value this, and if they do, they struggle to support it.

"How do we understand the broader context of learning." "How can we help optimize learning outside of schools and link school in?" "How can we develop a mutually beneficial respectful relationship between learning inside of school and out?"

"We do not want to say this happens here and that happens there..." Henry Jenkins

She will suggest that students need an educational intervention.

What does that educational intervention look like?

"What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks?

"What would it mean to reach beyond traditional education and civic institutions and enlist the help of others in young people’s learning?"

(WATCH 6:38 to 7:40)

A Snapshot: from SpeakUp, what students suggest (National Speak Up Day)

Social-based learning: Students want to leverage emerging communications and collaboration tools to create and personalize networks of experts to inform their education experience.
Untethered learning: Students envision technology-enabled learning experiences that transcend the classroom walls and are not limited by resource constraints, traditional funding streams, geography, community assets, or even teacher knowledge or skills.
Digitally-rich learning: Students see the use of relevancy-based digital tools, content, and resources as a key to driving learning productivity, and not just about engaging students in learning.

What's your next step? What is your organization's next step?

Critical Resources for Deeper Understanding

National Speak Up Day

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Media | Henry Jenkins et.al.

Together for Learning: School Libraries and the Emergence of the Learning Commons | Ontario School Library Association

Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project | Mimi Ito

Educational Networking: The Important Role Web 2.0 Will Play in Schools | Steve Hargadon

Is New Media Incompatable with Schooling? An Interview with Rich Halverson Part 1 | Part 2 | Henry Jenkins

The Impact of Collaborative, Scaffolded Learning in K-12 Schools

2010 Horizon Report: The K-12 Edition

Free Agent Learning: Project Tomorrow

Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds