Using Twitter in the Classroom

Social Networking Sites Harm School System

Should schools allow the use of social networking sites in educational settings by teachers who find that such utilities help them to teach more effectively?

Some schools are banning Facebook, Twitter and similar sites because of privacy concerns. Many people insist such websites are merely a distraction in the classroom, or worse.

Nearly everyone agrees that students should be taught certain skills such as how to navigate cyberspace safely, how to do research online and how to utilize digital technology. But the broader implications of the Internet must be considered when powerful electronic tools and utilities become part of the curriculum. There are 2 implications that are particularly dark, what some call "Soma" (based on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World) and "Big Brother" (based on George Orwell's 1984).

It is myopic to try to justify techno-twitter in classrooms based upon the obvious usefulness of the Internet, but that is what researchers at the University of Minnesota did when they "discovered" the pedagogical powers of MySpace and Facebook.

When asked what they learned from using social networking sites, "The students listed technology skills as the top lesson, followed by creativity, being open to new or diverse views and communication skills." But all in bits and bytes! In the final analysis the medium is the message: fragmented data streams are the end result, not holistic learning.

Neil Postman's Technopoly

Neil Postman pointedly entitled his book Technopoly because technology can deprive users of the "social, historical, metaphysical, logical, or spiritual bases for knowing". He also wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death, another title worth considering here. It is dumbing down our education to have students interacting with view screens and monitors (like they do not get enough of that at home) instead of interacting face-to-face with instructors and class-mates--be it around a table, in a laboratory or out in the field.

Social Networking Sites Dumbing Down Schools

Postman argues that soon society will not need to fear an Orwellian censor of books because no one will want to read them as people are "drowned in a sea of irrelevance" on a "descent into a vast triviality." Culture can survive the Internet, however, if everyone is on the same wavelength, so to speak.

A truly social universal network would be welcome in the classroom, but until that is available should schools not avoid introducing what could turn out to be black holes in the fabric of civilization?