Saturday, July 9, 2011

How to prepare students for mass-sharing.

If you visit 100 facebook pages about a certain topic, you'll find that in 90 of them there's a group of people offending each other for a comment that was made. I believe this proportion is even higher on Youtube videos.

Therefore, in my opinion, the most important aspect of educating a future (or current) 'mass-sharer' is that of tolerance, of respect for another's opinions and shortcomings, the ability to celebrate or recognize someone else's success or insightfulness (through something more than clicking the 'like' button). Sometimes, the anonymity of the web and the bi-dimensional nature of written text (where it is impossible sometimes to detect sarcasm or humor) causes people to be excessively aggressive and offensive, and somewhat less open to accept someone else's opinions.

If in person people often 'turn off' for someone trying to convince or explain a different point of view, having to read something attempting to convince you can be even more easily turned off. Often, online conversations (except perhaps when video is included) typically don't include asking for clarifications and readers act based on their first intepretation of what they read, which can be very dangerous.

Also, when having a conversation online with a friend you know in person, it is often possible to 'read' the non-verbal cues, or imagine and incorporate them into a virtual, textual conversation. When talking to someone you never met in person, or to 'youtubeuser1983', the text - often not written properly - and your own interpretation are the only things you have to go on. And that could be very dangerous.

1 comment:

  1. Simply said, social networking is here to stay and deliberately instructing students how to use it is a must, not blocking it so that schools can shirk their responsibilities.

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