Stupid technology tricks

OK, I lost the source where I read about this article (sorry), but it is worth passing along: When Social Media Bites at Forbes. The article lists examples of social networking misuse by adults ranged from a man asking his wife for a divorce on Facebook to having the diss of a new employer on Twitter being forwarded to the employer - all the stories giving some weight to the subheading: Kids get lectured about being careful on social networks. Adults should be scolded too.

There are some serious implications in all this silliness. According to "A study from Harris Interactive ... for CareerBuilder.com found that 45% of potential employers screen candidates via social media, up from 22% last year. Thirty-five percent of employers say they found reasons not to hire a person based on information they found on social network profiles." (As we ask all our new and student teachers "Are you sure you've deleted all your naked beer bong pictures from your Facebook page?")

If you read the article, don't miss the  In Pictures: 20 Social Media Blunders. These will make you cringe and laugh at the same time and include:

Second Life is a virtual world where users can play out real-life fantasies. Little surprise, real love has resulted from virtual courtships. In the case of Amy Taylor in Newquay, England, it spawned heartbreak too. Taylor told the Western Morning News that she filed for divorce after walking in on her husband having a virtual affair on the service. The two met in a chat room and had held a marriage ceremony in Second Life.

Graduate student Connor Riley was pondering whether to take a high-paying internship at networking giant Cisco and tweeted herself out of a job opportunity: "Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work." A Cisco employee spotted the post and informed Riley that she'd pass it along to her hiring manager. Riley told MSNBC that she had already turned down the opportunity.

and

Cody Redenius' ex-girlfriend saw him posing with a shotgun in a Facebook profile and reported it to local police in Dane County, Wis. Redenius was under a domestic abuse injunction that prohibited him from being in possession of a firearm. The photo was enough to get him arrested.

So do we need social and educational guidelines for adults or what?

Oh, it seems like I remember hearing many an embarrassing story about e-mail faux pas in the mid-90s as well. Something sort of reassuring about the consistency of human behavior.

Advice to library-lorn (again)

Now and again, I get an e-mail from someone in the field who asks for help or advice. I am humbled by being asked and try my best to respond. But now with the Blue Skunk, the person asking advice might actually be able to get something of value - from you the blog readers! Below is a slightly edited version of an original e-mail, identity removed, and posted with the original sender's permission. My response  follows the e-mail, but I am hoping that readers will add better suggestions. Thanks!

___________________________ 

Here is my dilemma.  I am working in a HS library in an affluent district [in the US].  I have worked in HS libraries my entire career.  I am very frustrated because the library is used as a lounge, the noise level is like that of a loud night club.  I have no administrative support.  Frankly the building is bursting at the seams and the students have no place else to go.  I try to maintain some order to no avail. We do have classes coming into the library but with all the noise it is hardly conducive to teaching.  My question: do you think there is any way that I can create some semblance of order from this chaos?  I have pleaded with the powers that be and cited studies stating that a strong library program is tied to student achievement, they yes me to death and do not allow me to ask students to leave for any reason. 

Is there any hope for this library?  Are most HS libraries facing the same issue?  I am really considering working in a Public or Academic Library, at least those patrons are appreciative of what we do

 

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

___________________________

My response...

I can feel the frustration in your e-mail - and can identify since I've been there myself. My standard response to a question like this can be found here:

http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/six-ways-to-beat-the-study-hall-syndrome.html

But I'll add a couple things...

First, it may very well be difficult for administrators to find other places for students to be during lunch periods, study halls and before and after school. Unless there is an alternative space you can suggest, there may not be much you (or anyone) can do about the crowding that leads to the noisy atmosphere.

In terms of behavior, I suspect you will need to get the help of all your building staff in developing norms of student activity in the library. Find ways of asking your site council, student council and parents about the sort of library rules would best suit the needs of the school - and then ask these groups to help enforce those rules.

None of these things are quick fixes and I believe there are situations in which a non-productive  culture is so deeply ingrained in a library that it can't be changed (or is not worth the effort). If that's  the case, one might be advised to look at other positions. I would.

 Readers, your insights and suggestions?

What defines "expert thinking?"

As things so very often are
intelligence won’t get you far.
So be glad you’ve got more sense
than you’ve got intelligence.

                                   Piet Hein

In my recent post Gone Missing, I speculated that many now automated jobs are those that could be described as "Routine Cognitive Work" - jobs answering questions like "What's my checking account balance?" or  "May I have a window seat?" or "Would you like fries with that?" The growth in jobs has been in the "Expert Thinking" and "Complex Communication" sectors.

I don't remember either term - "Expert Thinking" or "Complex Communication" - ever being defined. I'm guessing most of us apply the same standards to such terms as we do to "pornography" or "art" - we can't define it but we know it when we see it.

One way to look at Expert Thinking might be to determine what skills are needed when something of out of the ordinary occurs that makes following the procedures or routines impossible or nonsensical. Or when there are no rules or routines to follow in a situation at all.

For example, the library circulation policy dictates that elementary children can check out three books each week. A teacher tells the librarian that Frieda is a very good, very fast reader and three books a week do not meet her reading needs. The librarian, using Expert Thinking, quickly sees that there are two possible solutions to the problem: either allow Frieda to check out more books at one time or to allow Frieda to come to the library more that once a week. The librarian will also make a note to query her advisory group at their next meeting about whether three books a week constitutes a sensible circulation policy. Either a machine or a person who operates in the Routine Cognitive mode would simply re-state the current policy and allow Frieda to remain under served.

Creating new procedures, policies or routines brought Expert Thinking into play when Jen Hegna and I worked on our Guidelines for Educators Using Educational and Social Networking Sites. The development of these guidelines required research, synthesis, experience, and confidence. I'd argue that the ability to see relationships between the physical and virtual worlds, working knowledge of professional conduct, and a willingness to concede a degree of uncertainty are all a part of the Expert Thinking that went into creating these guidelines. I would also concede that a sense of humility that values the opinion of others, resulting in the revision of one's original thoughts, is a part of Expert Thinking.

So a couple thoughts about Expert Thinking and schools...

As I remember, most textbook chapters ended with a list of fairly standard comprehension/recall type questions: List three causes of the Spanish-American war. But I also remember the "extra credit" questions that were far more interesting: Is it possible for a newspaper, though its editorials, to start a war? If so, should newspapers be regulated to keep this from happening? Even sets of math problems were often followed by an application question or different angle on the math concept being taught.

It seems to me that it's not the standard questions, but the extra credits that asked us to use our "Expert Thinking" skills.

I am also concerned that there is a concerted effort to turn teaching into 'Routine Cognitive Work" instead of "Expert Thinking" work. Teachers, are you becoming ever more scripted? Are the number of minutes you spend on each content area being dictated to you? Is your performance being measured in only one way - student performance on standardized test scores? Are you more concerned about the rules of grammar that what students are actually saying?

Are the questions you ask your students the pedagogical equivalent of "Would you like fries with that?"