As I continue to catch up on missed discussion forum posts, I have combined the topics from Weeks 9 & 10. I am of the opinion that a discussion surrounding the use of social media in the classroom also suits a discussion of copyright and the ways in which it can influence teaching and learning. I think that an examination of the intersection between social media and copyright shows us that when people share interesting ideas and relevant resources, it asks of them to attribute, to the best degree possible, the ownership of those interesting ideas and resources. Unfortunately, social media has made it so easy to share words, pictures, and videos that the more difficult task of figuring out where those ideas came from is often ignored. This is problematic for teaching and learning. In the use of social media for learning, educators need to teach students to cite and attribute creative works appropriately, to act with proper netiquette while on social media, and to help students understand the tensions and links between privacy and openness online.

One of the biggest benefits I have experienced in my personal of use of social media, including (and limited to) Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest, is the build-up of my Personal Learning Network (PLN.) This has allowed me to connect with educators whose ideas I see as valuable and to also follow along with advances in the educational technology industry. At the least, it has been a self-curated list of interesting links, and at best it has allowed me to grow my perspective and my understanding of the use of technology in education. Students can also been given the opportunity to learn and to grow in this way. Age limitations and inappropriate web content aside (for the moment), students can be guided in the best way to adopt and develop a social media persona. The way in which students learn can be paralleled in the way that a new user adopts social media. Initially, people lurk and observe. Typically they next start to ‘re-share’ and to ‘favourite’ items of interest. This may lead to tentative dialogue with other users. Finally, students hopefully learn to create items of value that they initiate and share onto various platforms. This feels similar to an instructional strategy like “Watch me / we’ll do it together / you’ll go it alone.” It’s in the early phases of this model that educators need to teach how to accurately cite and give credit where credit is due. If nothing else, the spirit of attributing creative works properly should be ingrained in students. More appropriately, students can learn a system relevant to their understanding, to cite the work of others. Older students can explore this topic, as Kirsten mentioned in the discussion forum, by exploring the work of Lawrence Lessig, and his interpretation of Remix Culture. Being online in this way will also require significant support, scaffolding, and supervision during the gradual release of responsibility. Students in younger grades can operate as a whole using a class Twitter account, whereas older students may be asked to create ‘professional’ or school-based Twitter accounts for engaging with their peers without the noise of everyday teenage stuff.

One often discussed aspect of digital culture is a perceived openness, a willingness to share everything online. Cory Doctorow discusses in his video “Privacy and Trust in Open Education” the tensions that have existed between the fights for both privacy and the open sharing of information online. Whereas privacy and openness were once thought to be at odds with one another, we now see that they have merged and have become overlapping concerns (Doctorow, 2015). These are vast subjects to undertake, and as Doctorow points out, the issues that can be identified in our digital culture (i.e. privacy concerns, the need for freedom of information, big data, technology in education) are extremely intertwined with one another. Students need to learn that none of these subjects are black and white and the one aspect of digital culture can, and likely is at odd with another aspect of digital culture.

My aim will always be to keep anything that is mine as useful as possible to those who might be able to use it. This will consistently require checking out who can access information and how they can access the information. These are digital literacies that take time to develop and today’s teachers who use technology in their classrooms need to foster these competencies in their students.

References
Doctorow, C. (12 March 2015). A conversation about privacy and trust in open education. Retrieved from http://craphound.com/news/2015/03/12/a-conversation-about-privacy-and-trust-in-open-education/