The reality of the read/WRITE web is that students are now part of the discourse.
Steamy night here in c’town. The boy has been sleeping on and off, and tonight he’s not sleeping so much and it’s bon’s turn to put him off into sleep. I’m gonna try and sneak a post into the evening…
Art Gelwicks has been having a debate with a bunch of random students in a blog post that i made a few months ago. I’ve gotten about 1500 google hits from that post, which says MUCH more about how important it is for people than it says about my blog’s popularity. Reading through the comments gives you a sense of how desperate these students are to get to myspace… It’s not as if my blog post promised any support for their plight, and still, they posted. They are, as it were, using my blog as a means for interacting with each other, for passing information back and forth about how to crack through their school’s system.
So Art says
- Rather than spending time trying to find ways to bypass your schools filtering and policies, wouldn’t it make more sense to pursue getting those policies changed?
The response is so typical it might have been put their on purpose to irritate him (and it might have been)
From Marlene
- I NEED A MYSPACE
From Karla and Andrea
- i need myspace at school
So Art responds by taking them to task for taking the easy way out and not applying their education to convince ‘teh autoritays’ to let them ‘make the case for the site you want access to.’ And I agree with him, that should be the kind of education that they have received… but have they?
I’ve often been taken to task for the title of my blog, a new acquaintance of mine (hopefully soon friend) asked me the other day what ‘post-structuralism’ was. I sent her this quote from wikipedia
- post-structuralism views culture as integral to every textual work. Essential elements of this cultural context include author(s), location, format, audience, and myriad social and economic factors. A typical post-structuralist position holds that the meaning of any work is itself a cultural phenomenon.
Lets take a step back and look at the comments in that blog post and ask ourselves… what’s going on?
Well… there’s my original post. I had intended to start a series of myspace watches of which this is the second. I was definetely speaking to an audience of peers, probably adults, a quick reference to the Simpsons, and my agenda message… teach them how to deal with a thing, don’t ban a thing out of hand. This with the implicit message that students will find it one way or the other.
Then there’s the responses by people I’ll call educators. They’re mostly in agreement with me, (dave says smugly, of course, it is my blog, so one would assume that they might) i believe, if i interpret it correctly, even Tom Hoffman didn’t completely disagree with me. And i believe that’s the only time that’s ever happened!
The response of the students, however, shows a completely different view of the post. They didn’t see the content, they had a completely different experience on the page. One interpretation might be that they saw an adult who was not wholely unsympathetic, and they dropped another coin in the well… posted here as they might have tens of other places. Another interpretation might be that they didn’t see anything, and we’re taking over my blog for their own conversation. Art’s encounters seem to support this position.
What the blog IS is very different depending on your culture, your feelings about format and who you are as an audience. While, to some degree, this has always been true, Shakespeare, for instance, is a painful experience to many teenagers and great fun to many other people. The reality of the read/WRITE web is that students are now part of the discourse.
We are no longer in a world where a single dominant discourse “shakespeare is good for you” can enforce its agenda. These students are going to subvert the system, and make themselves heard. But in looking at the posts from those subverters of the system, i have to agree with Art, but I’ll change the pronoun “is that the best WE can do?”
Lets break down what they’re looking for. It’s a piece of ‘knowledge’ that is in constant flux. What worked at the start of the comments, did not work for the student at the end (Alex Q). It’s not like looking for a date, or a physics equation… it might not even still be accurate by the time you try it. This is the knowledge that these students are going to need to be able to learn and access. This is how they are going to need to learn.
Simply posting “i need my space” on random blogs is not enough.
How then do we teach students the literacies that they need to be able to excel in a world where knowledge is so fleeting. Where an analysis of culture is necessary in order to get the things you want. Let’s take a slightly different example, as i wouldn’t really teach students how to break through the schools firewall, not because it wouldn’t be a good learning experience, but because they shouldn’t do that.
Lesson 1Â
any suggestions? what exercise could they do that would teach them the literacies alluded to above? Something they should do.
Sorry Dave, I didn’t realize we had blogjacked you. 🙂
Teaching our students how to make a cohesive argument is one of the most powerful things we can give them. Teaching them how to use technology to help them make that argument…that means they’re “loaded for bear.” When a student questions why some policy is the way it is (let’s not start on dress codes) the answer is often an unsatisfactory, “Because.” I’m a firm believer in not accepting the answer “because” to my question “why?” However, complaining and whining about the rules does not change them. No one over the age of 18 ever gets what they want by pouting in the real world, especially when dealing with authority.
Rosa Parks did not quietly step away when told to move to the back of the bus, but nor did she sneak through the back door. She made herself heard and stood for what she believed in. Show them how to research references that bolster their stance while minimizing the positions against their own. Teach them to use social networking to band together, gather facts and support, and then make their case in an intellegent and confident manner.
There are societies in the world that are far, far more repressive than schools…illustrated by the fact that we are able to have this conversation at all. Teach them what it is like to truly have your access to information repressed for no other reason than because the powers that be do not agree with the content.
For the most part administrators filter information only when pressed to by circumstances beyond their control (being one I can say that with a fair amount of confidence.) Rarely do you see censorship and blocking information unless pressure has been placed on them to make it happen. The majority of technologists believe in the free flow of information and it pains us when that doesn’t happen or is suppressed. Help your students understand the motivations of administrators, teachers, and parents, whether you agree or disagree, so they are better prepared to work with or work to change the status quo.
The power of the web is it’s ability for people to share ideas. It’s not the “groupthink” that often occurs when people are willing to let others shape their opinions for them. Teach your students the power and strength they wield with their own opinions and ideas, and the knowledge and information to support them.
You can easy access myspace from school or work via web proxy servers like: http://msproxy.net
or for anonymous browse, bypass firewall restriction and hide your real ip address:
http://www.hidemyway.com
http://www.surfinter.net (secure server, myspace proxifier) !
Enjoy!
It is working !!! thx
wat up
i am bored
I agree with art. I have brought up a proposal to my school which also had 98 persent of the students signatures asking for the allowal of myspace.com along with other websites and it worked. It took all of a week maybe two. But its available to my school…
i loveeeeeeeeeee myspace please let us hve it at school