Conforming to nonconformity
Friday, August 31, 2007 at 08:51AM "Nonconformists are significantly heavier users of social networking sites than other students, participating in every single type of social networking activity surveyed (28 in all) significantly more frequently than other students both at home and at school -- which likely means that they break school rules to do so. ...
These students seem to have an extraordinary set of traditional and 21st century skills, including communication, creativity, collaboration and leadership skills and technology proficiency. Yet they are significantly more likely than other students to have lower grades, which they report as 'a mix of Bs and Cs,' or lower, than other students. However, previous research with both parents and children has shown that enhanced Internet access is associated with improvements in grades and school attitudes, including a 2003 survey by Grunwald Associates LLC. In any event, these findings suggest that schools need to find ways to engage nonconformists in more creative activities for academic learning." -- From a new report by the National School Boards Association <http://files.nsba.org/creatingandconnecting.pdf> as reported on “Good Morning Silicon Valley” for 8/08/07. Thanks to Nancy Walton at the Minnesota Department of Education for passing this one along.
Creating and Connecting, the report from which the above was taken, has been riding around in my computer case for a week or more. The interesting
quote above got me to finally read it. I'd suggest you do the same. And share it with your administration.
One of the things about the report that caught my eyes is the disconnect between how schools (or school officials anyway) perceive the value of social networking vs. how parents view it. While 80+% of schools prohibit chat and IM; 60+% prohibit bulletin boards, blogs and e-mail; and over 50% "specifically prohibit any use of social networking sites;" (p 4) 76% of parents "expect social networking to help their children improve their reading and writing skills or express themselves more clearly." (p. 7)
Should those of us who are excited about using social networking tools to improve education be looking for allies among our parents?
Oh, and are the adults who are social networks more nonconformist and more likely to break rules than their peers?
Reader Comments (7)
What exactly are those of you who are excited about using social networking tools to improve education proposing? For "Social Networking Tools" specifically.
Your "old gen x" and "leading edge millenials" are at prime baby making age right now...many of us with kids headed to school this year.
In a related story, I was just asked by my boss why I'm swimming upstream with this Web 2.0 thing when many of our districts block access to these tools.
Despite just about every aspect of my thinking on this subject being (too) public for the past 5 years, I'm pretty sure my employer hasn't really tried the old "Google Search" your employees.
Hi Tom,
I think that is a fair question and one I can answer only for myself.
I see social networking tools like blogging, wikis, and Ning as a means of making publishing student work for public and peer review and collaboration on research projects simple enough to be practical.
In my experience as an English teacher, I've found higher levels of concern for quality when a work will be shared with a broad audience and that peer comments are helpful for both the writer and the reader.
In a nutshell,
Doug
John,
When you look up nonconformist in the dictionary, your picture is there!
So what did you tell your boss?
Oh, as far back as 1996, surveys indicated that parents placed a higher value on tech skills than did teachers. (Public Agenda survey - looking for the exact citation.)
Doug
Doug,
I don't think it is wise for us to start calling blogs and wikis "social networking." I think danah boyd's definition is sound: "A 'social network site' is a category of websites with profiles, semi-persistent public commentary on the profile, and a traversable publicly articulated social network displayed in relation to the profile."
"Networking" isn't the same thing as publishing, collaborating, peer review, etc.
Hi Doug,
Just writing to second your observation about student investment in published work. I haven't yet used blogs in my high school English classes, but in my limited experience with wikis, I too have noticed that the students take greater care to research & verify sources, as well as fine tune both their structure and content, than with some of their "traditional" essays (and they readily admit to this, so it's a conscious decision they make).
Hi Damian,
Thanks for the comment! I saw this when we started having kids make webpages to display their writing. To think Grandpa might see a spelling error!
Doug