Is Facebook the answer to Mathland? How do we self-motivate students to want to write and desire to write? While this question does seem an oxymoron, since motivating anyone to do anything isn’t self-motivation, but the question still remains relevant. It seems to me that Facebook and similar technologies have achieved something important and powerful; they have provided the means for people to want to write, to want to respond to ideas that intrigue them and make them think; yet inside a writing classroom writing is considered a completely different notion altogether. How do you equate writing on Facebook and other social technologies to writing inside of an academic classroom that seems stale and dead? I think once we learn to teach writing in a different form, a form that allows and privileges students writing through these social technologies, then the writing class will be changed for the better.
It surprises me that the writing class, and academic classrooms for that matter, has hardly changed in the last 150 years even in the face of these new and exciting technologies. Why has the academy been so hesitant to adopt these technologies and allow them to open up new worlds of academic thought for their students? Sure I think teachers and the academy are scared to learn technologies that they fear their students might actually be more knowledgeable about then they are, but I don’t think fear is an excuse for this blatant disregard of technology. Why do we consider Facebook and other similar social technologies inferior or insufficient to be used for classroom purposes, when there is obviously so much potential in these technologies for self-motivated writing? I don’t know. Maybe it is because the kind of writing that currently takes place in these technologies is so horrible that it would be a travesty to consider it academic writing. However, these technologies have yet to be tapped for their full potential in the academy, and I think that once we adopt and start using these technologies in the academy we will see a dramatic change in student and academic writing altogether. But first I think we will have to reconsider our notions of privileged and unprivileged discourse in the academy before any of these social technologies will have any effect on academic writing. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.
I share your perplexity over why universities, administrations, and teachers are so resistant to new ideas. Whether new theories of teaching composition or new technologies or both, what is so sacred about the ways things have always been done that these innovations are almost dismissed out of hand? I'm an "old fart" and even I don't get it. Here's the thing, if I really care about doing my job to the best of my ability, and giving my students the best chance at success in my classroom, I am going to be open and receptive to any idea or invention that may help facilitate that goal. I'm not going to feel threatened by it. I am going to study it, talk to people about it, maybe test it in my own classroom, and then if it appears that it will enhance my ability to do my job well, I'm going to adopt it. Simple enough. I too am startled that others find this idea so challenging.
ReplyDeleteBecause you pretty much said what I tried to say in my blog for this week and you did a much, much better job of it, I'm going to comment and tell everyone that this is what I meant. I should cite you. I'll also answer one of your questions with pieces of my spill. When you ask why there is resistance to using Facebook and other social technologies in the classroom, I think that it's caused a bit by the fear you also mention. But I think this fear is caused by teachers in the university loosing their language to this communication. Eventually, students will demand that their education matches the expectations they have outside of the university. They will want their success to be measured in the same terms that the outside world measures success. Therefore, they will see this type of communication as dated, good for a certain population but useless to the rest. It will separate the universities as the Ivy League separates themselves now (best example I can think of). For those not in Ivy League schools, we think that's great for them, but we don't care enough to all want to learn and sound like Harvard students. We still want to succeed, though, so we'll find the university that understands this.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, this doesn't mean we're abandoning a "proper education." It just means we understand the entire scope of knowledge, society, and all of its workings.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm clipping this response and pasting it on my own blog. Daniel, you inspire me.