Social Networking

Although I’m fairly new to social networking I can see its value. A person would have to be blind not to. I realized how lucrative these sites were when I conducted a search and all of a sudden YouTube came up. I didn’t ask for it, but I sure did appreciate the visual. It’s much better than reading text. Not only did I get a video of my search request, but I also got other videos pertaining to similar subjects. That’s a lot for just one search. I can only imagine how many people are reached each day with this type of networking.

It amazes me how people can create all these interactive sites just by indulging in their everyday hobbies. And placing ads on the pages, no wonder Rupert Murdock and Yahoo invested so much in MySpace and Flickr. Now that I think about it, the marketing concept will have no end. It’s only as limited as an idea and from the looks of it, the ideas just keep coming. According to Bradley Horowitz, head of technology development for Yahoo, “For media and Web-portal companies, the new social gadgets can look like a magic money machine. Rather than exhaust yourself producing what you think the kids might want, you sit back and let them show off for one another.” (Anya Kamenetz’s The Network Unbound) These social network sites can pretty much sell themselves.

I missed the speeches of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the national Democratic Convention. Immediately I went to YouTube and viewed them there. My most recent YouTube searches were photography, braiding and cutting hair, and Beyounce's "Ring the Alarm." A woman took me on a walk-through of her house she has for sale. I also went hiking up a mountain with that same woman. It's like I was really there. "Why watch fake "reality" shows when you can connect with actual reality?" (The Network Unbound)

Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants

I classify myself as a digital immigrant. Technology came along and I was taught to use it. I didn’t get email until 1997 and even then I didn’t know anything about it except that it was another way of communicating with people. Then I started to learn about the Internet, web pages, and a primitive instant message that was out at the time. Naturally, I was fascinated. But there was still so much I didn’t know. The things I didn’t know then, I classify them as being simple now.

My nieces, on the other hand, were born into technology. They eat, sleep, and wake up at the computer emailing, working on My Space, and walking around in virtual rooms they created and decorated themselves.

I totally agree with Marc Prensky’s observation “…students have changed radically,” in his 2001 article Digital natives, digital immigrants. There was a time when it was ok to teach using a lecture and textbook only, and it was effective. But, educators in public schools who continue to teach today’s generation in this manner are losing their students. Charters schools, from what I hear, are using computers more frequently in their instruction.

The words on the T-shirt, “I’m not ADD, I’m just not listening,” seem to be the sentiment of students in public schools. My experience with observing students in a classroom is that they have very short attention spans when all they hear is lecture. But, if that lecture also includes work on a computer, and the students are continually engaged in the lesson, the students enjoy learning.

Technology is the new vehicle being used to drive education. Therefore, it’s understandable that students in this generation have different cognitive learning patterns than those of previous lessons. I also agree with Prensky in saying that Digital Natives view technology as a “friend.” I tend to use technology simply as a tool to help me accomplish a task.

Technology is here to stay and it has become our way of life. Educators who continue to operate in the old manner and fail to embrace technology and incorporate it into their instruction will become obsolete.