Twitter Visualization. Photo by Ross Mayfield. Used by permission.
The web is radically changing how we do things. Look at politics. Citizens from across the nation are using the resources of the Internet to post comments, share data, and challenge claims. It seems obvious that technology has come to a vast majority of American households and that many of us are participating in online virtual democracy. Every flyer is scanned and shared. Robocalls are recounted. Facts are checked via live blogs, text mails and news programs. Consider these examples.
- The day prior to Sarah Palin’s introduction as the Republican vice presidential nominee, there were 464 changes to her Wikipedia page. On the day after the announcement, there were nearly 2,000 entries correcting and posting new information.
- Barack Obama’s conversation with a plumber in Ohio was recorded on a cell phone and posted on the Internet, leading to the “Joe the Plumber” phenomenon.
- YouTube videos of event goers entering a political event making racist comments went viral and lead to an online debate on race in America.
The challenge for educators is to keep up with this real time world where everyone can post a comment with a few taps and a click. Most school districts do not solicit comments or create sanctioned online forums where parents and students can state their opinions, discuss school policy, and the like. The result? Motivated parents and students simply use other digital avenues instead. If we want to know what parents and students think of our new report card format or dress code, we’ll need to look in Facebook or sign up for their Twitter streams.
If we educators close our eyes to the virtual democracy that is the virtual world, then the world will not so virtually pass us by. I hear all the time from teachers and principals that we can’t use electronic communications because not every home has a computer. True, yet April 2008 data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project show 65% of U.S. homes are connected to the Internet; and, from what I see, many of the people in those homes are active in online communities. The time has come for us to acknowledge this reality and to learn the lessons of the events around us. We need to think carefully about what and how we do things today, before they are done to us.
I agree with you on this Bob. It is in fact quite exciting to be able to create a community dialog We may not get all parents to participate in the education of their children on-line, but i bet we get some of them!
Bob,
Could not agree more. Am getting tired of the lame excuse that not all parents have access to the internet at home. How about at work? the library? a friend’s house? an iPod Touch? Time for the schools to lead by creating online communities that just might motivate more parents to gain more access. Internet devices become cheaper all the time.