Friday, January 28, 2011
Multi-Modal Literacies: History of Facebook
I thought this article was really interesting. Before reading this the only thing I knew about the development of facebook was the fact that it was developed in a Harvard dorm room by Mark Zuckerberg. However, I think this article shed light on a lot of important issues. First of all, I think it's really amazing that a person younger than I am now was able to create something that is so influential and widely used today. However, I also thought all the legal issues were interesting. I think the fact that Zuckerberg had so many confrontations with close friends and associates proves that he wasn't a very good person which makes him difficult to admire for his work. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this because I think facebook is a really impressive invention but I don't admire the ways in which it was created. I think this article also brings up important issues about the nature of facebook in general. For teachers, I believe it's important for teachers to teach students acceptable use of facebook. It can be a great way to communicate with friends and work towards educational goals, but students need to be aware of the way in which they are representing themselves and be careful not to post pictures or statuses that can be incriminating or represent themselves in a way they would not want. I think facebook is a great tool that needs to be used responsibly.
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I didn't know much about how Facebook was started either and I found your blog post to be very interesting! One small point I thought was interesting was when you said, "For teachers, I believe it's important for teachers to teach students acceptable use of facebook". I agree that helping students understand the pros and cons of Facebook and reviewing with them the possible ways they are being represented is very important. However, I question your word choice: Yes, we are adults and therefore have more life experience and we should use those experiences to help our students, but we need to remember that our students are young adults with minds and moral guides of their own. If we decided what is "acceptable" and then expect our students to follow the guidelines we teach, we will probably run into students who do the opposite of our well-intentioned "acceptable" guides. A way to avoid this is have an open discussion about Facebook; find out what your students deem as acceptable and unacceptable. By placing expectations on our students - the expectations that they are mature and able enough to deem what is or what isn't acceptable - the students will probably be more willing to follow guidelines.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with what you said when you talked about the fact that students have different ideas about what is acceptable. They are a part of a different generation and it's important for teachers to take into account the differences that they have. However, I was simply talking about the fact that teachers should touch on the fact that students should be careful about the types of pictures they post because potential employers etc. can see the way they present themselves. I was just talking about that type of thing, but I see your point also.
ReplyDeleteThere is a modern sentiment now that says we ought to teach responsible facebook use and nearly all of America buys into this, but not me. I will advise my students to try and keep their interactionsand communications face to face or over the phone, the old way of communicating. I will teach the mthat facebook interactions are superifical utternaces that are used soley to make the users of facebook feel important. Don't labe lme as crazy for being anti-facebook, I understand that when peopel have family and life long firends that are far away facebook is a great medium for communication, but the way young people use facebook now is goign to create an anti-social culture where online interactions are valued the same as face to face interactions.
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