Sunday, March 25, 2012

When we block social media we block learning

At New Canaan High School students have the freedom to learn using tools they love and the websites they need to be most successful. One of the two freedoms were taken away from them in honor of “Banned Websites Awareness Day.” On that day students were blocked from using the sites they commonly use for learning and collaborating such as YouTube and Facebook. Not having the ability to use the tools necessary for success in the real world for learning at school deeply interfered with their ability to get the education they deserved. It really drove home the fact that the young men and women at this school were fortunate to go to school in a place that trusts and respects young people.  

Watch this video created by librarian Michelle Luhtala to see how these young people felt when this freedom was taken from them.

1 comment:

  1. I created a Scoop.It of additional resources to give context. Our students and teachers use Facebook as a communication, collaboration, and productivity tool. Their concerns that day were not so much about being cut off from their friends socially, but rather that it impeded their ability to efficiently collaborate and communicate with teachers and peers. It slowed them down. If we were to try the experiment again (and we won't!), students would complain more about losing Twitter than they did in September. That too has become an integral part of our program. scoop.it/t/facebook-in-the-classroom

    ReplyDelete