You’d expect more. These are educated, intelligent people who, in general, have achieve some level of success in their careers. No failures here. Yet, you’d expect more of an awareness of what they are doing and how they are treating people who don’t agree with their positions. You’d expect more critical thinking. You’d expect more of a desire to debate and discuss with peple who disagree, if only to learn. After all, these ARE learning professionals.
These are the people who are promoting social media and social learning as solutions to a wide variety of problems, although often they don’t specifically state what business problems would be amenable to social media. It’s understandable that there will be zealots. There were television zealots who told us that TV would revolutionize how people learn, and computer based instruction zealots who told us the same for computers and instruction.
But do we need proponents who are demeaning toward sceptics? Must they interpret every “resistance” to supposed new technology as “fear”? Are those of us who want to see hard data, and criticial thinking really people who “don’t get it”? Must those of us that see Twitter (a social medium) as flawed and limited, be told we should take “Twitter 101″ since we clearly don’t understand?
Just such comments have appeared on Twitter, authored by well known, and otherwise reputable proponents of Social Media in training and learning.
Apart from the inappropriateness of these comments, it harems their cause(s). For those of us that hold the view that social media has some strengths and weaknesses (like everything else on the planet), being abused for taking that position does not attract us to help others use the platforms, particularly since most do not offer any significant advantages to previously existing platforms.
Demeaning remarks made about those with reasonable, differing views, galvanizes those people into active resistance.
Demeaning remarks stifles dialogue, and that may simply be the biggest problem, because it is only through a consideration of opposing viewpoints can social media be improved and more useful in learning and training.
Most people get suspicious about remarks, and attempts to sell an idea through the demeaning of others. Is it because what is being sold simply isn’t that valuable that it’s necessary to attack critics?
What is perhaps most disturbing is the intolerance of these proponents, and their attempts to avoid dialogue with those that disagree. Social media/social learning people talk to each other, but do not want to hear from the critics, who are either ignored, or insulted. No interaction, no growth.
In any event, I think I’ll start publishing the public comments of these folks as they occur on Twitter, along with identifying who is making them.
If you want to see social learning and social media succeed, stop acting like children, and BE SOCIAL in a responsible, intellectually honest way.
Absolutely! We need to have respectful dialogue about new opportunities for learning. How many people are discussing impact of SM on learning is indicative of the way we seem to discuss many of our differnces in the broader perspective.
Listen, learn, take what you can use and politely disregard the rest.
Peace.
Dunno. Seems like you’re on Twitter so you must not hate it:)
I see your point. I’m not completely convinced about Twitter and the like. But I’ve been toying with social media since the BBS days. I’m not sure why we seem to be excited about the ‘revolution’ of social media.
There’s a change in the way applications are built. In some cases we appear to be reaching the toddler stage in functionality, usability, and reusability.
I’m guessing the only thing that will survive from the Twitter fad are a more mature concept of tagging into a stream and maybe a few of the shortcuts. The concept of Twitter itself is a small evolution of several other ideas, which were small evolutions of other previous ideas.
No eureka today folks, nothing to see here. But it’s interesting to watch the Jerry Springer Show antics unfold on both sides. Thanks, Robert:) Now hit them with a chair. It’ll be funny – to me.
I agree. Were you around in the Fidonet days, when we all rejoiced and chipped in so the hub could get a 1200 baud modem? I used to run a BBS called Educom in Winnipeg, and also Compulit on commodore 64′s which, not surprisingly were about helping people learn.
I really never considered them social media. Does that term mean ANY thing where more than one person is at in the computer world?
Hey dudes, out there. We did e-learning on a c-64 with 64K of memory! Social learning indeed.
Social media… I suppose it’s an accessible buzzword. And it’s not completely without value. I suppose if it raises the comfort level of folks to a point where they are more apt to connect with others at a distance (while maintaining less distant contact) it’s not a complete loss.
I pose this question to you, though. Despite the fact that your Compulit BBS wasn’t intended for learning, do you suppose people did? If by nothing else but the virtue of the connection, an answer to a question (the impetus for every Google search).
It’s a train of evolution, we’re on it. I’m thankful in many ways to have such access to speedy comms and ready information. I’m hopeful that you are as well. There’s value. It might not be the ultimate value, but certainly channels of virtual communication are one of many penultimate contributors to learning.
May I go to sleep now, please
In truth NOTHING I have achieved in my career, in publishing, in book writing, in business,blah blah would have been possible without computer technology and connectivity. Seriously. I was offered book contracts via internet by people I’d never met (I’ve still never met them) who only knew me via the early net.
So, I’m a staunch technogeek, really. BUT, it’s interesting because technology in MY hands has been priceless, but that does not mean that building a business the way i did would work FOR ANYONE ELSE. It was technology PLUS me, PLUS timing, PLUS.
My problem is with those making these ridiculous pronouncements and attributing any disagreeing comments to stupidity or fear.
As for the question about whether people knew what COMPULIT was for. I dunno. I think so. We tried (both of us were involved in teaching, training, college instruction, and me, teacher training) to encourage computer questions, and tried to answer them.
But let’s face it. It was one wild frontier then. Now goodnight.
Social media allows individuals to gain exposure and interact with other professionals in a particular field. Great networking resource!