Digital Britain (or at least, South West!)
July 1st, 2009 by EmmaYesterday I was lucky enough to be in lovely sunny Paignton for the Global Entrepreneurship Week South West Meetup, part of a crack team of Make Your Mark-ers consisting of Chris, Sarah, Lauren, Rachel and Kate!
I delivered a couple of short workshops on digital tools that could help event organisers and as I sang the praises of sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook the teachers in the room helpfully pointed out that most schools actually block these sites!
Which got me thinking. Why do educational institutions dislike social networking sites so much?
That they encourage cyberbulling is an accusation I have heard many a time. While such sites (and indeed mobile phones) may give bullies another channel in which to torment others, any space where young people gather (whether this is online or offline) the chances are bullying will occur – but that is no reason to stop them gathering in the first place! Surely, it is more important to support and empower those who are being bullied (in digital terms, ensuring young people know how to protect themselves online) and dealing with bullies appropriately.
That they lead to time wasting in class is another strike against them. And, yep, social networks are a vortex of time wastage. We’ve all done it – log into Facebook to read a direct message and a status update and a few instant chats later and you’ve been on there for three hours. Naturally, if used in school time then this would have to be within the parameters of the lesson and given a purpose – and surely break/lunchtimes would be an ideal time to let pupils access them?
The point is, social networks are one of the places young people choose to be. Last year Ofcom reported almost half of children age 8-17 had a profile on a social networking site – and this will have only grown since then. And like it or not, mobile technology means that they can access them anywhere – even in the classroom (depending on how whily they are obviously!).
More importantly, whilst often painted at the scourge of the modern world, social networks allow young people to express themselves in the manner they feel comfortable with – whether this is tweeting, making videos, blogging, etc. They can interact with their peers (on a global scale!). They can share and produce content.
Basically, social networks are a hotbed of ideas and creativity and in blocking them schools are missing a trick – and, as digital becomes even more important in terms of business and enterprise, could be doing pupils a disservice by not allowing them to use these sites within a learning environment to see how they could be used professionally aswell as socially.
Phew, rant over! Would love to hear the thoughts of others on this. In the meantime, I would also like to know how we can get around the YouTube issue (issue being that schools cannot view the marvellous videos we post on YouTube) – please head on over to the Global Entrepreneurship Week UK forum if you can help!
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