Very interesting. I often talk to my students about the contextual rhetoric of their facebook profiles or wall-writings. What I do find is that they are often more rhetorically savvy than we give them credit for–that they are more adept at sniffing out the clues for community norms online than we might realize, but they need to learn to ask the right questions. Is this awareness because they are signifying their identities and forging connections increasingly through online text and image? I might be overplaying this, of course–the last thing I want to do is make a case for revolution. Nonetheless, I feel that as teachers and educators we have more to learn about how our students are building communities online and using technologies to learn and create knowledge than perhaps the other way around.

“We have a running myth (or call it a shortcut) in the English language, that there are specific definitions for given words.” Like word “meme,” for instance. (sorry–couldn’t resist! :-).