The problem for us outsiders is that your example seemed incredibly inefficient (either that or your students aren’t citing more than one or two sources). If each student has a list of 50 sources, I can’t comprehend how it would make sense for them to send out a collective 1,000 Twitters about the sources, as opposed to sending one mass email (for example) or perhaps creating a wiki. And in the example, it seems that Twitter is for some reason overshadowing the importance of actually knowing anything about the topic in question.

“…the learning curve on content is steeper than the learning curve for social media. I would argue as teachers we need to calibrate our teaching time accordingly.”

I think this is where our disagreement still lies.

You seem to be suggesting that on the one hand you have content and on the other you have social media. And, because social media is ‘user friendly’, teachers should calibrate their attention to content.

What I am saying is that social media should be fully integrated into the ‘process and event’ of what we call classtime. In other words, it’s not about taking a certain amount of time to ‘teach’ social media. It’s about modeling the use of social media through the act of and for the purpose of teaching content. And then the students engage with the content via the tool of social media.

Though this discussion started concerning Twitter, and I gave an example of a simple but proven effective way of integrating Twitter into a lesson for the purpose of teaching online source evaluation, perhaps a better example of social media with profound implications for the classroom is Diigo.

Diigo is a social bookmarking tool that allows users to save, highlight, comment on, and share knowledge and criticism directly onto text existing on the Web. Students therefore have the ability to read, say in my case, the first paragraph of the Gallic Wars in Latin (available online via Latin Library). Each student could then individually mark up the text with comments on grammar, vocab, proairetics, historical reference, etc. Once the students are finished, we can throw all of their work together and will have produced a completely collaborative annotated version of the text.

How is this different from doing it on paper?

Because that annotated version will then be seamlessly shared, merged, mashed, refigured, and distributed throughout all of the standard social media and Web 2.0 tools we use in class including Twitter and Google Apps, as well as specialty sites like Pixton and ThisMoment. Most importantly, the work and the student reflections on the work are kept in the students’ individual blogs which act as sort of a transparent notebook / digital portfolio. I encourage the students to exchange comments and create dialogues there just as you and I have done here, both within and without the physical classroom.

The extensions of dialogue and consideration into the social media fabric produce something that is quite impossible within the constructs of a traditional paper classroom — namely an ongoing real-time 24/7 transparency of process between students and teacher which facilitated by a cool hand will result in greater individual engagement within the broader discussion as well as greater breadth of learning (meaning the old Classical ideal of horizontal learning) given individual approach, and whathaveyou, towards the subject matter and the discussion.

I realize it is all too easy to just talk about this, which is why I really do invite you to take an active part in Twitter as well as other social and participatory media. Only you can see if it works for you. In addition, I plan to start Ustreaming courses in the fall.

I stand by my conviction that it’s not enough to just write Twitter or whatever media off as a tool to be ‘used’ to teach something; rather, as I’m sure you have encountered in blogging, it becomes something of the daily fabric of life and more of a metaphor for a way of approaching the world. Engagement with social media in education and the full integration of social media within the learning environment promotes active participation in the very real ubiquitous media of culture in a way that behooves us as teachers to get beyond the old dualism between content and skills.

- Shelly

ps – I’d write more, but I feel like I’m taking up too much space here. Any further comments thoughts on this train of thought I’ll post over on teachpaperless.com . Always an exuberant discussion. Cheers.

Then I think we agree, Shelly. I’m not suggesting that the technology is irrelevant, but I do think I’m on solid ground in saying it’s of lesser importance that the content. Too often (to bring this full circle) I fear we focus on the technology and view the content as mere “stuff.” Your expertise with guitars allowed you to seemlessly transfer your knowledge to a new medium. Your expertise with a medium would not allow you to transfer your knowledge to guitars.

Given that a technology has to be user-friendly to become ubiquitous (my words, but Stuart’s point), the learning curve on content is steeper than the learning curve for social media. I would argue as teachers we need to calibrate our teaching time accordingly.

Any primary Canadian classrooms looking 4 collab with international classrooms? Please see @Bligoben for possibilities.

I don’t think short attention spans are something new. Otherwise, we’d have generations of kids who grew up actually finishing Melville, Proust, and Steinbeck.

Again, 140 characters is misleading. It’s a matter of the links that you can share and search in real-time. Really, try it out. If you don’t like it, no skin off my nose; but it might turn out to be more useful than you think. I’ve got a number of great librarians who I share ideas with via Twitter, and I’d be happy to include you in that network.

@Robert

“For the life of me, I can’t wrap my mind around why the ability to work with information materially changes the moment it is digitized.”

In that statement you are totally correct. I agree, material has been digitized online for twenty-plus years; that’s not the change I’m talking about.

But things have changed rapidly in technology over the last two years or so. And I’m not talking about hardware software. I’m talking about the fact that the Web itself is changing; and that reflects a change going on in the way billions of people are using it.

And there’s a point at which things are about to go exponential (if, as some would argue, it’s not gone there already).

I’m talking about what’s coming down the pike. I’m talking about how that is going to directly influence both the ways our students access material and the way they process it.

I’m talking about the Real-time Semantic Web.

The live searches available via Twitter Search and Twitterfall are a hint of what’s coming. The collaborative construction of information in real-time via Google Wave is a hint of what’s coming. The work at MIT with collaborative, participatory, augmented reality is a hint of what’s coming.

We’re standing before the floodgates and we have no idea what’s on the other side.

***

Also, Robert, I’m glad you brought up eBay because that’s a good example. You said:

“Here’s my (perhaps overly facile) sense of it: Let’s say I’m an antiques collector. I can spot a bargain at a tag sale or an auction. Does eBay negate my skill? Not at all. It’s just a different venue in which to deploy my expertise. The difference maker is what I know about the subject.”

Here’s the thing. I collect guitars. I used to be able to buy them in little shops here or there and get decent deals.

For the most part, that world doesn’t exist anymore. The only place you can afford to find deals on vintage guitars is online. The difference in my buying habits had nothing to do with my knowledge of the subject changing; it had to do with the environment changing.

We may disagree on this, but to make an analogy: I think preparing our kids only with the content of the subject without integrating the skills required to navigate the reality of the changing environment does them a disservice. The result is tantamount to a guy who loves vintage guitars and is incredibly knowledgeable about them, but who can never manage to buy one because he’s in the dark as to how that system works.

I’m for holistic education. Content + Skills + an appreciation for change and the ability to be flexible. I wouldn’t expect to give anything less to my own students.

- Shelly

That kind of website is wonderful. Still, I don’t see any disagreement with the fact that most people have very short attention spans when they’re browsing online — and constantly praising Twitter, of all things, bolsters that point more than anything I could say. So what will be the point of putting these wonderful lengthy sources online if most people don’t have the patience to read anything longer than a paragraph?

Shelly, your Classicist bona fides notwithstanding, this is exactly the kind of statement that leaves me scratching my head. For the life of me, I can't wrap my mind around why the ability to work with information materially changes the moment it is digitized.

Here's my (perhaps overly facile) sense of it: Let's say I'm an antiques collector. I can spot a bargain at a tag sale or an auction. Does eBay negate my skill? Not at all. It's just a different venue in which to deploy my expertise. The difference maker is what I know about the subject.

The "skills" that enable us to make meaning from primary sources have nothing whatsoever to do with their appearance on a screen 12 inches from our noses. It is--and always will be--a function of what we know or learn *about those sources* not the medium in which they appear.

If someone invented a 21st century hammer it wouldn't dramatically change the training and experience a contractor would need to build a house. Nor would anyone suggest that "tool fluency" is now the soul of carpentry. And so it is with information literacy. It dramatically expands access to information. It doesn't change how we process it.

“What bothers me about the university library scene these days is that kids haven’t learned how to read books in an effective way, or indeed at all.”

First of all, (and take it from a king of wild generalizations), that’s a wild generalization.

Second of all… there are plenty of extremely strong text collections online that have interactive features and aid in developing the sort of information fluency that kids are going to need to navigate the Web as the century moves forward. The Library of Congress just opened their ‘Teaching with Primary Sources’ service: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Check out what they offer and you might start to understand why kids in your library aren’t pulling books off your shelves.

Shelly

If that’s what you perceived in my comment, I must have been unclear. What bothers me about the university library scene these days is that kids haven’t learned how to read books in an effective way, or indeed at all.