The last post got a little heavy for my tastes, so I wanted to write a little about why I think Web 2.0 and Social Media is kind of rad. To me, Web 2.0 is at its most interesting when people are doing the craziest, dumbest stuff imaginable. One of my favorite twitter accounts of all time (which is sadly no longer active) is Stealth Mountain (https://twitter.com/stealthmountain), a twitter bot whose sole purpose is to correct people when they say "sneak peak" instead of "sneak peek." That's really dumb, but it is also kind of beautiful in its lunacy. Or what about ChatRoulette, the random video chat service that allowed to us both communicate with people from all over the world and view obscene images? (Does anyone have any other crazy examples of Web 2.0/Social Media that I might find kind of interesting?)
When we attempt to harness something for good though (e.g., using Twitter to improve learning), it inherently becomes less interesting. We are taking a technology that is wild and free to do whatever, and attempting to force it into a specific hole. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it does force us to ask questions about what effects this specification has on the Web 2.0 technology. Is it still compelling and interesting once it is taken out of the "Wild West"? For instance, most of us love Facebook (I love Facebook). It's how I communicate with most of my friends and organize large parts of my life. But the second I have to use it for something specific (i.e., planning an event), it becomes more of a drag to use. So how do we keep things interesting in Web 2.0 for learning?
I'm curious to hear everyone's ideas. Do we try to preserve the novelty and craziness of the technology in some other way? Or do we make the trade-off in novelty to embrace something else that is useful about the environment?
Oh dear. Week 1 and ChatRoulette has come up already? ;-)
ReplyDeleteMy 0.02 is that we don't take the "everyone loves Facebook, let's adopt Facebook for learning" approach to harnessing the technology. That rarely turns out well. However, we could ask ourselves what people love about Facebook and what parts of Facebook (either the technology or the community norms that have developed ... or some other part) are making good things happen and then determine if we might integrate those in another context or environment. We still run the risk that we will build it and no one will come.
I prefer to think about how we can honor the amazing stuff people do on their own, and encourage people to feel free to explore and use technology in cool ways. To me, that's another way of harnessing something for good.