n recent years, there has been explosive growth in students creating, manipulating, and sharing content online (National School Boards Association, 2007). Recognizing the educational value of encouraging such behaviors, many school leaders have shifted their energies from limiting the use of these technologies to limiting their abuse. As with any other behavior, when schools teach and set expectations for appropriate technology use, students rise to meet the expectations. Such conditions allow educators to focus on, in the words of social technology guru Howard Rheingold (n.d.), educating “children about the necessity for critical thinking and [encouraging] them to exercise their own knowledge of how to make moral choices." One process for creating the necessary conditions is reported in From Fear to Facebook, the first-person account of one California principal who endured a series of false starts to finally arrive at a place where students in his school were maximizing their use of laptops and participatory technologies without the constant distractions of misuse (Levinson, 2010). Other similar processes and programs are emerging, and they all share a common theme: an education that fails to account for the use of social media tools prepares students well for the past, but not for their future.
Jill Miller on 04 Sep 15I like this infographic for several reasons: 1) it's an infographic, and 2) it's Creative Commons Attribution licensed, which means anyone can use it, change, it, share it, or make it even better, as long as attribution is given! One of the key points made here is that connectivism allows for cross-generational learning, challenging the notion that learning can only be acquired through transmission from our elders.
courtneykaul on 05 Sep 15At first I thought this visual was very overwhelming and chaotic, but as I looked at the individual parts that make up the whole I gleaned a lot of new information about the way personal learning networks work. The visual also made it very distinct that not only cross-generational learning occurs, but also cross-cultural learning. I feel this is important because learning across cultures can be highly beneficial in showing various points of view. Great source!
