It’s Out there
Picking up on yesterday’s theme, and on a post from a while back; dean David Rubin postulated that ‘texting’ was, I don’t want to put words in his mouth but something like, “…replacinging traditional communication forms and thus discouraging face to face social interaction in class.” Something bothered me about that, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Encountering another dean who seemed to take the position that there were no serious problems with either students or technology, the light bulb went off. I’ll agree that it’s difficult to get students to interact in class, but my experience is that they’re doing just fine in their dorms, apartments, clubs, bars, snack bars, on the quad, etc. We may not be altogether comfortable with what they’re doing face to face, but we sure can’t accuse them of not doing it, and perhaps more to the point, they’re using technology to set it up.
Here’s and interesting YouTube video that suggests some ways we might leverage that for more formal educational purposes.
