The social media revolution in education: we can do it!

There needs to be a social media revolution in school.

In the past month we’ve all been hearing how social media had played an integral role in the revolutions in the Middle East, how Twitter and Facebook spurred a movement and toppled a government not ready to face such a brush fire. We all saw the power of the people played out on our television sets, over the internet and on the Twitter feed and how the people’s voice can be spread and heard through the social network. There’s no denying the power of voice.

I recently read an article by Chris Tayler on CNN called “Why not call it a Facebook revolution” where he expounded on how traditional media are purposefully downplaying and even dismissing the role of social media in these revolutions. Head stuck in the sand comes to mind on the absurdity of such statements.

"People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented," the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell opined on February 2. A few weeks later, The Financial Times' Gideon Rachman reminded us that "the French managed to storm the Bastille without the help of Twitter -- and the Bolsheviks took the Winter Palace without pausing to post photos of each other on Facebook." - CNN

It wasn’t until I got to his observation of an interview in Tahir Square that gave me an idea.

“Remember the kids interviewed in Tahir Square the night Mubarak resigned? What struck me most was what they were doing while waiting for the reporter to finish his introduction: thumbing on their smartphones. Want to hazard a guess at the website they were checking?” - CNN

That started me thinking of how these kids were not unlike the kids we have here in the classroom. The kids in Tahir were plugged in, posting their activities and contributing to the collective voice. They were participants, observers, reporters and revolutionaries. They were active, alive and communicating.

How does this translate to kids here and in the classroom. Kids are naturally social and they find any means to communicate. Prior to mobile devices and Twittering there was Instant Messaging. Prior to that there was texting. Prior to that there was passing notes in class or in lockers. Messaging has been in our lives across generations, it’s just the means to and the reach of that has changed.

Kids are plugged in. At home they tweet about what they are doing, what game they are playing, what homework assignment they hate to do. They are growing up in a world of a collective voice where their identity is not just made up of the people immediately surrounding them but the world.

They want to post what they are doing, tell about what they are learning, express themselves on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube but we won’t let them. We as adults want ultimate control over our environments, to limit means of expression we don’t understand or may prove to be disruptive to the learning environment. True, we are charged with making the most of the little time we have with them, get them through the materials, make the grade, graduate and all the while getting paid little except for the personal reward of affecting lives. Teaching is a profession of passion, no doubt about that but could we do more if we have better tools?

School is a social place of interaction but when a student enters school, they are entering a foreign country where rules dictate behavior to achieve an outcome. They walk through the doors, they are separated from the real world. Cell phones off, linear thinking caps on, and the plod on through the day.

Egypt president Hosni Murbarak tried to quell the rebellion by controlling his country and shut down the internet. This exercise of control didn’t stop the revolution which eventually ousted him from office 18 days after the revolution started. Schools exercise control because of the fear of the unknown, because of fear or litigation, an embarrassing story leaked out about something a teacher did and was posted on YouTube. But should schools be run in such a way to disconnect our students from the real world because we fear?

Kids want to remain connected, engaged with their social sphere and the world around them. Have them post about what they learned in class, take pictures of their work and have the world rate it, put their writings up for the world to see and critique, express their art and creative talents online. More importantly, have them talk about how they feel through the day, what inspires them and what bores them. Creative solutions are out there.

Thankfully there are a few public schools and districts out there who are embracing social media. Birdville ISD comes to mind.  It’s a start.

Sheltering them from such a relevant piece of their lives is doing them a disservice. We don’t need to truly understand social media to begin to embrace it. What we do need to understand is that disconnecting these kids from the social world is doing more harm than good.

These kids in Tahir Square are connected because they have a means of expression. We live in a social world and there needs to be a social media revolution in our education system. Bring the world back into the classroom and not keep the classroom out of the world.

What a great article, I’d encourage you to read it. I’m fascinated and inspired by what’s going on in the world of social media. This is only the tip of the iceberg.