The Facebook Generation: Homework as Social Networking

The Facebook Generation: Homework as Social Networking

Stacy M. Kitsis

I am starting to think a little differently. It’s taken the whole semester, but using the wiki for this third group assignment and then reading this article by Kitsis has started putting some clear context for using the read/write web in place for me. My problem with Richardson is that he is so exuberant and keeps throwing paint around, splashing up all the walls in the new color that I found him and his ideas off-putting, even a little threatening. Then reading the push-back text, The Dumbest Generation, just started putting the whole read/write web idea back into its box for me.

Now, however, with her thoughtful, carefully articulated report of how she used email and blogs (and intends to use wikis) to shift responsibility for homework discussion back to the students, I am beginning to reconsider. I was impressed by how her students felt excited to be in control of the learning process, as collaborators, with their peers, and how the role of teacher shifted to that of facilitator, the technology started to seem less of a barrier to learning and more of a tool. Obviously, and Kitsis noted this, access to technology is paramount, and students have to be able to work on homework in their own time—class time is too precious to let laggards make up posts in class—and opportunities to make posts would have to be provided for students who don’t have access to computers or the internet at home (in my school, definitely).

Something that Kitsis said in her article: “I bathe in pleasure and relief: When meaningful feedback is no longer my sole domain, the whole class shares interpretive authority,” really struck me as a good result for the teacher in this. As a new teacher I am worried about so many things, procedural, pedagogical, etc., that this course has seemed a little overwhelming in its import. Editing Wikipedia, setting up blogs (when I don’t feel we have had the time to blog or even that I have anything I would want to blog about) has sometimes seemed a little irrelevant to my immediate concerns. It hasn’t helped having to rush through so much of the course. Taking the time to slow down and think and consider what someone like Kitsis has to say, has helped. Now, I’m wondering how something like this could be set up: the practical nuts and bolts of it interest me. Even playing with the wiki for the third assignment has been more interesting. So, yes: this was a useful article to read. I’m glad I did.