Week 3- Blog 5- Social Media
Liz Dalton
Full Sail University
I learned the same lesson that I have been preaching to others since… forever. I get the same question asked of me every year, several times a year, “why do you run marathons”? Other similar questions I get asked, “aren’t you afraid you will get arthritis in your knees”? “Why would you do that to yourself?” “Do you win?” They (I think) are well meant questions and I try to answer them as best as I can with answers such as: “I am weird, I am driven, I love to run”. But what I would really like to say is, “ hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”. I had the same experience in reverse with face book and twitter. I made fun of my children and my friends for “wasting” their time on face book. When my boys were about 12 and 14 there was a segment on the news about how pedophiles were using my space to lure young children into meeting them. I asked my boys if they knew anything about my space and they both told me they had accounts. I “freaked” out and told them to get rid of them immediately. I new nothing about social media except the bad I heard on the news. When I was assigned to create a face book account and a twitter account I tried to think of a way out, of course, there wasn’t one. I begrudgingly set up my face book and twitter accounts. My friends and kids all made fun of me that I set up an account. I hated it, at first. After face booking for about a month, I saw the value in it. I was able to collaborate with my classmates. I have been able to find out what people I haven’t seen for years are up to. I can follow my children’s lives without seeming that I am prying. Just 2 days ago my friend that I grew up with had her birthday. I downloaded a birthday video from YouTube and wished her happy birthday on face book and it saved me $5.00! I also love twitter. I have been following several educational tweets and it is helping me with this class as well as my teaching. I really liked the social ice cream analogy from the Social Media in Plain English (2008, May) video. I totally feel like after 3 months of face booking I have multiplied my knowledge of people that I knew in the past, know now, and that I have met through my masters program. I feel like I am connected. I should have tried it before I knocked it!
I agree with Gordon Brown (2009) that social media binds the world together so that we can find solutions to problems. In the video Collective intelligence, The Vision (2007, May) it states through social media, people who have problems can get connected with those who have the solutions. I was so impressed with the Gold Challenge website. The owner of a gold mining business had the problem of his geologists not fining the gold. He decided to give that problem to the world on the web and offered half-million dollars to anyone that could solve his problem. 77 different people responded and solved his problem. This is an example of how powerful many heads are. I also have found this out, first hand, in working in my groups during my masters program. I believe our projects have turned out much better together than if I would have done it alone. Because I see this in my masters program, I have been having my students doing much more group work. Social media is a very powerful tool. I can see this is our future. I am sold on social networking.
References
Hey Liz, can you please post some of the educational twitter people you follow please?
ReplyDeleteI liked your post! Very personable.