CMTC2006 - David Weinberger, Social Software as Teaching & Learning Tools

(came in halfway through)

• social software needs to have a sense of a persistence for the user (blog url, avatar)
• edublogs.org
• other audience members - we can be their guide, they are going to be doing this eventually anyway, we can be there to talk about safety - meet with parents if necessary
• we are kidding ourselves if we think we can really control internet access by kids - posting to myspace from their cellphones in the bathroom
• the best thing we can do for our kids is help them understand what is appropriate
• points to a piece of parent education that is larger than social software - we need to start talking with them about how the world is flat
• one parent printed out a paper copy of his daughter's myspace page and went to hang it up on the bulletin board at the mall - daughter of course freaked out
• we have empowered parents to opt out of these things by treating 'technology' as an extraneous thing. no. it is absolutely necessary. it has to be so integrated there is no room for opt out. we need to say to parents , 'you not get the choice.
• david asked if anyone sets up 'back channels' in their classroom - chatrooms for additional discussion in the background about what is being presented