If we can’t use it at work… Why can students use it at school?
MySpace, Bebo, Facebook and other Web 2.0 sites have practically being banned at most workplaces and practically outlawed in US Schools. However as Robert Andrew tells “Don’t Tell your Parents; Schools Embrace MySpace“.
Elgg is an online social network designed specificially for academics. Students and Teachers can create profiles, add photos, videos, blogs, friend lists, podcasts and many more. Schools are seeing Elgg as a great learning tool due to its online collaboration between students. Collaboration, interestingly enough, was sited earlier as one of the Six C’s of Motivation.
As training school teachers we are always discussing in our methods subjects how we can make learning more student centered. Using Elgg is collaborative as well as student centered… we are entering students worlds… we are using what is known to these students (Prensky’s digital natives) and helping them to learn in their own personal learning environments.
I asked my younger sister, who is 17 and just started Year 12 at school, if she would like to learn through using MySpace or something similar to Elgg… she was very keen on the idea saying that this form of learning would motivate her to learn and would help especially in group assignments and working collaboratively with small classes both from home and school.
Students are already immersed in MySpace, Bebo and Facebook – why not utilise what they already know to build on it for further knowledge?
Elgg homepage from http://www.spoongraphics.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/elgg.jpg
November 7th, 2008 at 1:49 am
[...] http://ronie.edublogs.org/2008/11/05/if-we-cant-use-it-at-work-why-can-students-use-it-at-school/ [...]