Online social networks and a teen's suicide

Last year Megan Meier, a 13-year-old from Missouri, committed suicide after an online relationship went sour. Megan thought she was dating a likable 16-year-old boy named Josh who she met on MySpace. After a month, Josh turned on her by sending cruel and abusive emails. It turns out that “Josh” was actually the 47-year-old mother — Lori Drew — of one of Megan’s ex-friends. Lori was avenging her daughter, who Megan had apparently spurned in the past.

The press have predictably dined out on the story, which has provided ammunition for those opposed to the dangers, and even evils, of online social networking. danah boyd’s post about this tragic event is interesting and mitigates somewhat against the media hype: Overprotective parenting and bullying: Who is to blame for the suicide of Megan Meier?

It’s true that mediating technology reduces social consequences — e.g. being punched by someone who you insult — because it takes away the immediacy of physical, real-time interaction. (This is not new. Good old-fashioned letters do the same. They shift time and space. But today’s mediating technologies are different because of persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences.) So, does this reduction in social consequence mean that it’s easier to be rude and cruel in cyberspace? Another one of danah boyd’s posts — Musing about online social norms — provides some insight into answering this question.

What happened to Megan was the result of a deceiving, abusive, bullying adult. We should not blame the technology. Further, online activities usually mirror offline ones, e.g. if you are a vulnerable teenager offline, you’ll probably be one online. This looks like the case with Megan. While education about online activities and how to navigate this brave new world might not have saved Megan, it cannot be a bad thing and we should continue to educate young people about life in mediated publics. In this space certain social consequences are limited, but others are exaggerated due to the fact that what you say sticks around, it is searchable, it is replicable and it can be read by unintended audiences. Lori Drew was found out, after all.

Nokia study predicts rise of 'circular entertainment'

A new study from Nokia and The Future Laboratory predicts that by 2012, a quarter of all entertainment will be “circular”, that is created, edited, and shared within peer groups rather than being generated by traditional media. The bulk of the study was based on interviews with trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles.

Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia, said: “The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups – a form of collaborative social media.” The term circular is based on the movement of content: it is created, shared with friends/family, gets edited/remixed and then shared on or returned again.

As Tim Leberecht of CNet says, one has to take these vendor-funded studies with a pinch of salt. He makes an interesting point about the study: that the distinction between traditional and “circular” entertainment is becoming increasingly difficult to define. But still, for what it is worth, the tech early adopters in these countries are living in and establishing a participatory culture.

I wonder, since the data is based on the actions of early-adopters, how much of this applies to South Africa (SA)? If the prediction is five years out, is it any more for SA? And if yes, how many more years? Only two of the 17 countries are traditionally comparable to SA: Brazil and India. Reading about the survey findings there didn’t help to answer these questions, but it does make for interesting reading.

Workshop: Blogging in the classroom

ICT4Champions is a Google group concerned with the use of web 2.0 in South African schools. Today Maggie Verster, founder of the group, lead a workshop on blogging in the classroom. It was attended by 10 educators, all from private schools, who were shown how to create and customise a class blog using Edublogs. I attended to meet Maggie and the others in the group and to pick their brains on the state of Web 2.0 in our schools. The bottom line: basic use of ICTs, let alone for connected, creative, collaborative web 2.0 activities, is limited and problematic in South African schools. According to the attendees of the workshop, reasons for this include:

Lack of physical infrastructure: PCs, printers, etc.
No or slow connectivity, due to the prohibitively high cost of bandwidth.
Lack of support from school principals and management.
Lack of ICT literacy of educators.
Educators’ fear that their learners know more than they do about technology (which they usually do).
Time pressure on educators to work through the curriculum, leaving no time to learn how to blog and get blogging with their learners. Educators simply don’t have enough time in the day.
Overworked educators who resist taking on “just another thing.”

The attendees asked for:

More workshops such as this one. They appreciate practical “starter” lessons from someone who’s done research and knows which software, technologies and sites to use.
Educator guides for referencing and citing content.

Compared to public schools, private schools usually have fairly good ICT facilities, supportive management and a willingness to send educators on training courses. Right now in private and public schools there are champion educators and principals who implement web 2.0 in their classrooms. Their learners blog, create digital stories and participate in social networks. The educators themselves are active members of communities of practice, such as the Maths Literacy one in South Africa. But these cases are very very very rare. There is much work to be done to change this!

Image by Maggie Verster

Teaching critical thinking in History class

Next year a new matric History syllabus will be taught in South African schools. For the first time ever, Grade 12 learners will learn about apartheid.

But what is equally significant is the departure in teaching approach from rote learning of historical facts to discussion and open debate.

According to a Sunday Times article, the revised content aims “to make history more inclusive, representing different points of view” and that it encourages learners “to make up their own minds about the past.” In the article, historian Professor Nigel Worden from UCT says: “I’m a huge fan of this curriculum. It’s not just the new content but also the way it encourages skills of inquiry.”

This is very encouraging! By asking questions and holding the facts up to group discussion, learners develop analytical skills such as inquiry and critical thinking. And presenting their arguments for or against, whether in written or oral form, develops communication skills.

Image by Georg via Flickr (CC)

Mother-tongue education (part 1)

(I am currently researching and developing a position on mother-tongue education in South Africa for the Shuttleworth Foundation. This is the first in a series of posts on this topic.)

The Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) Language Transformation Plan will promote six years of mother-tongue-based bilingual education, where practicable. Currently only grades 1-3 receive mother-tongue bilingual education. A pilot project is underway with 16 schools in the province where certain subjects are being taught in isiXhosa. The WCED claims positive results thus far: isiXhosa learners are far more lively in class, their academic performance is improving, and learner and educator self-esteem is growing.

I met with Prof Zubeida Desai, Dean of Education at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), who has been directly involved in a similar project, called Loitasa. Her views are as follows:

There is no doubt that mother-tongue bilingual education is a good thing. It allows learners to develop cognitive skills because they can focus on the subject being taught without having to struggle with language issues.
In Norway, learners are taught in Norwegian, but learn English as a subject. Most Norwegian learners speak relatively good English. The same goes for Holland.The key is that English is taught in an engaging way and for communication purposes.
In SA, we have learners who are taught in English from grades 4-12 and yet many leave school as very poor English speakers.

Essentially, Zubeida believes that English is crucial for living and working in the world today. Mother-tongue education should not be about doing away with English. Rather, for learners, it should allow learning in a language that is familiar, while at the same time learning English as a subject in an effective and engaging manner.

Image by Crivins via Flickr (CC)

Engaging problem learners through digital storytelling

Engaging problem learners through digital storytelling is a short piece I wrote for Thought Leader on how digital storytelling is proven to engage learners in the classroom. This is particularly relevant for South Africa where educators are increasingly dealing with unruly and violent learners.

Informal (m)learning: youth and camera phones

My world through my camera phone describes a project about a group of teenagers from San Francisco and Pretoria who used camera phones to document aspects of their lives, post the material online and to engage each other around that. Every week I would meet with the group in San Francisco to discuss that week’s tasks, which were related to capturing and conveying aspects of their individual culture: their family roots, the food they eat, the music they like, their community, etc. While much more research is needed, the project demonstrated that mobile phones and blogging, supported by in-person group discussions, are useful tools to foster cross-cultural awareness.

The project began to answer questions such as:

How do youth socially and communicatively interact with their mobile phones?
How can mobile phones be used to document their lives?
And in a world of global communications, can this mobile device be a conduit for increased cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity?

Image taken with a camera phone by Ben Dunning, 14 (CC)

Beginning to define the C&A skills theme

The Foundation has five core themes, one of which is communication and analytical (C&A) skills development. This is a very broad theme that needs to be defined and focused, something that I’ll be doing over the coming months. As a starter Helen King, the Shuttleworth Foundation’s Principal Advisor, pointed out the following regarding this theme:

The Foundation seeks to promote the development of C&A skills of school learners. Where possible, technology should be used in skills development.
The focus for the Foundation is not on the bright learners who will have access to good maths and science educators and go on to become mathematicians, scientists, engineers, etc. It is concerned with the vast majority of learners who are currently being failed by the system because they receive inadequate maths and science teaching. Reasons for this include there not being enough educators in these subject areas and not enough text books for learning.
While most of these learners won’t pursue careers in maths or science, they nevertheless need C&A skills to be productive members of society.
The question then is: how can learners effectively be taught C&A skills in schools in ways that can fall outside of the maths and science classroom, and in the context of a developing country in the 21st century?

The Shuttleworth Foundation 101

After a full week at the Shuttleworth Foundation (SF) I’ve got a better sense of its overall goals and the space in which it operates.

The SF’s primary focus is on formal education in schools (all grade levels). Informal learning is also relevant if it contributes to the formal learning outcomes.
The SF operates in South Africa (SA), but with the hope that any applicable educational software, models and projects developed will be used internationally.
Many schools in SA face dire challenges: not enough educators, too many learners per class, lack of electricity, corrupt and defunct school feeding schemes, learners in grade 7 who still can’t read or write, overworked and overstressed educators, no or limited bandwidth. But while these harsh realities exist, there are many schools that have adequate facilities for learning. The SF works on certain assumptions: the school has a computer lab with internet connectivity, learners are literate, educators have (at least) basic ICT skills.
The SF searches for “quantum leap” solutions that will have a large-scale impact on education in SA and beyond. As an organisation, it is small and agile enough to focus on innovative approaches to education.
The SF is committed to all things “open”: open-source software, open content and creative commons licensing.