Blog Post Week 13. Making Students Knowledge-ABLE
Hey everyone! So wow, I don’t know about y’all but that Ted Talk was extremely inspiring and had so many great points. The article was great too, but I just thought the presentation was so well put together.
Anyways, one of the key main points between the article and the video, was that students are a central part of the future, and it is our educator’s job to educate us on how we can best succeed in the present timeline. That means utilizing social media. Some teachers try to refrain from using social media, but that is ridiculous. The video makes a great point when Michael Wesch shows that most of his students have used social media websites in class. It’s going to happen. So why should educators try to refrain from utilizing social media? We need to be taught how to be good digital citizens, because social media is such a powerful tool. The article discusses how physical boundaries are nonexistent because of social media, and it is true. The example from the video of Kenya during 2007 and the terrible earthquake in Haiti were great examples of how social media actually saves lives. The Marine Corp soldier talked about how powerful of a tool it was, and it is absolutely true. The article and the video definitely share this point in common, when they talk about how powerful and useful digital media and teaching students to utilize these digital tools.
Another key point that the article and the video shares is when they discuss how digital media does not stop critical thinking, but they actually further critical thinking into creative thinking and useful participation. This is evident in the video when Michael opens a Google Doc for his students to discuss what it is like being a student during present times. All of his students used in, and there were more than 350 edits on the google doc. That shows students were actively participating, critically thinking, and socially communicating with each other. The Google Doc was a tremendous example to show how students communicate now. Here students can openly share their thoughts, when in the past, some students would never be able to get their voice heard. All of the professors in the article discuss how it is necessary to teach students how to use social media, and that is because it increases critical thinking skills. One person cannot change much by themselves, but by working as a team they can. The point from the article about how schools already teach us how to read and write, why shouldn’t they teach us how to be better digital citizens and how to use social media? It improves literacy, our critical thinking skills, and most of all teaches us how to connect with others via this useful tool.
Overall, I think both the video and the article made many good points. We are taught how to be good people in normal society, and it needs to be pushed to be a good citizen inside the digital web.
