A Must Read!

[Karen Richardson]

First, an apology for being AWOL for a bit. I've been following the action in Netvibes and am so happy to see many old and new faces joining the VSTE community. I haven't been absent from the world but been concentrating my efforts over at In Another Place. But, this morning, as I ate my breakfast before heading out for a workshop, I came upon a VERY interesting exchange between some grown ups and one of those digital natives we're all talking about. For now, I'm reserving comment, mostly because I'm running late, but I thought this group in particular would be interested in this online event.

It started with a series of twitter posts between a 14-year-old and a teacher. (OK, I know I said I would reserve comment but I'm worried that people think they can have overly meaningful conversations in 140 words or less. I should also disclose that I learned about this event through twitter.) Start here with the post from the grown up that includes the twitter exchange. Be sure to read all the comments. Then read the extremely eloquent post from the teenager in response to the flap he caused. (Wish I could write like that when I was his age...maybe all that blogging and im'ing is good for something after all. Also, if you wish to know more about this student, you might want to take a glance at his summer reading list. Pretty impressive!)

Now, tell me what you think? Who is responsible for this? Is it just adolescent angst getting played out in the online world? Are you, like me, breathing a sigh of relief that I grew up in a non-Internet world where my rants against adults were confined to a paper/pencil and very much private diary? And, how do we help our students live in this new world when we ourselves are still learning? Are there lessons from the analog world that are still useful in the digital one?

[Meneta Deaton]

Karen and John,
I think there are a few things to glean from these postings. I agree with John that at the core of it all is the idea that we all need to be responsible for what we say. The lesson is, perhaps, especially important now that we have more opportunities to say/write/speak through Web 2.0 with more listeners/readers than in previous times.

There is an element of the permanence of postings, but it is sort of a sub-element. If we learn the first lesson of responsibility, the second one of permanence is a lesser issue.

Another element of writing/speaking through Web 2.0, or even through e-mail, is that these communications have some similarities and differences to spoken conversations that are important to note. The similarities include the power of words to have an effect on the recipients. The differences include the missing elements of tone of voice, facial expression, and body language for the speaker. As John points out, it is also different from published, printed works. In fact, each of the different Web 2.0 tools has different kinds of writing/conversation: Twitter is different from chat which is different from e-mail which is different from blog. I think that as technology educators, we have some work to do with teachers and students to understand these forms of communication for what they are, while we try to teach responsibility for what is said, written, and done.

[John Hendron]

I specifically liked what one of the last commenters (as of today) said. I really don't see this in a different context than any of the examples we use when covering Internet Safety. Arthus spoke out, and his comments are "on the record," just the same as when some other kid posts sexually suggestive pictures of themselves on MySpace. Someday, they might just regret that.

What complicates this particular situation I think, and by "complicate," I really mean to say "enrichens" or "deepens", is that we have protagonists and antagonists at different ages, some of which are in the business of education. Ultimately, everyone involved and everyone watching (as I am) is learning through this real-world process.

Karen, I think this is 21st-century learning at its finest. I'm not so worried that what either party said is "recorded" by the blogosphere/archives/search engines. The lesson we should have been teaching 50 years ago, and the same one we ought to be teaching now, is to be responsible for what you say, and stand behind it. If you can't really own your own thoughts and passions, then they aren't worth sharing.

What these folks got wrapped-up in were their own passions and the foils of psychology. We ain't immune to the impulses to act and react.

We each have our good & bad sides. The fact that some of the ugly spills out online, oh well. We've got to get over this mentality that stuff we read and see online is like the printed page: pristine, edited, and favorable. The "real" Web 2.0 gives tooth in terms of time to everything we publish. As more and more of us join this online community, I think the shock of this new reality will fade.