Friday 3 July 2009

Who are we to play god?

With the advent of social networking sites, peers were able to link up relationships with others.  There was no heirarchy with regards to the relationships unless you count the people who collected others to look popular.  Now that is all and well, but what happens when a University or Company introduces these capabilities.  The lecturer if in the group now becomes the lead figure and this create heirarchy and accountability.

That gives a lot of power to the University, we now not only control and administrate the students education system, but we are now trying to control and administrate their personal information.  We can see who is more popular, who is the alpha's. Would that slip into the way academics perceive students, will the lecturer use that to their advantage?  Others might feel left out of a group if they start Uni and see that there are already groups being formed.  It is an interesting topic, and one that should be experimented with first to ensure that these details do not come to pass.

Will the uptake be as well without a heiracrhy or with?

1 comment:

T Winchester said...

An interesting point. I attended a conference last year that discussed the usefulness of FB and SN in a classroom setting and almost to a person we agreed that it was not a good idea, nor usefull to teaching and learning as a whole.

And let's be honest, if we can see their updates, they can see ours. All the same, I'll pass thanks.