Crap, Crap, and More Crap

In Rheingold’s Net Smart, he discusses his guidance of his daughter in discovering what information is true or not. He discusses the importance of looking at the author of texts as well as what people are saying about the author and their background. Finding that the author of historical text was a white supremacist was incredibly important in the reliability of the information.

Taking this to the classroom I want students to begin to understand what is reliable and accurate texts, instead of reading all news as fact-checked because it is on a good looking website. Further I want students to know how to look up the author.

As an example I did this with Rheingold, and I found that he is 69 years old man, who is a visiting professor at Stanford and a lecturer at U.C. Berkley in their communications department. His studies include media as well as pedagogical styles and the understanding of learning. What I gained from reading about him is important to understanding the text. Does his age limit how much he is able to contribute to the conversation of digital literacies? I don’t know, but it is something that I am thinking about while reading the chapters he has written. Has learning changed and is he adapting to new learning styles? These are all questions that I am thinking about while reading his text.

Being an informed reader is helpful in understand what is CRAP and what is not. We need to instill the extra steps of identifying the author and their position so that students can fully understand the material and become informed readers.

Are digital relationships not real?

While reading Rainie and Wellman’s Chapter on digital relationships in the book, Networked in which they discuss the complexities of networked relationships. “Facebook and Twitter users control what information they disclose online. For example, neither Rainie nor Wellman discuss much of their personal lives on twitter” (Networked, 125). Further the discussion continues that there is a much richer and substantive relationship or networks being built in real life. I would disagree with these notions, first that educators or anyone for the matter need to be closed off to discussing their lives on the internet, while understanding what content is and isn’t appropriate, and second, online relationships and networking has profound impacts in real life.

Lets tackle one thing at a time. I always love it when a professor or one of my high school teachers would talk about their weekend, or what their kids are up to. I feel as if I am part of their life and important to them by getting to share in their experiences. There is some understanding that in a classroom setting making these connections for students is important and necessary for students to engage and learn. Now the fine line comes in on social and digital avenues. I have seen many teachers, engage with students on a secondary Facebook or twitter account. They balance between sharing their personal lives (something fun they did over the weekend, photos of their kids) with class content. I felt that it was a very well executed tool to engage students in a realm that they were interested in.

On to the second question, about authenticity of relationships in digital spaces. I feel that there is this dichotomy between the creepy weird stuff that is happening online, and people that are truly online to build relationships, networks, friendships and the like. This has quickly progressed I would say in the last 10 years, where the internet was not a safe space to converse, but now is an acceptable tool for meeting and dialoging with people. It also seems that people are more real online then they used to be. Sharing information isn’t feared as much and the online avenue of networking is used as a helpful and necessary tool in which people can engage. I also believe that these online interactions can help strengthen in person relationships, by connecting people based on interests online first and then the in person relationship can go much deeper as there is less need for the small talk to get to know people’s interests or dislikes.

Overall, I think that the online social networking tools are underused and understated in the educational system in which students and teachers can engage in a much more deeper and substantive level.