It's Complicated, The Social Lives of Network Teens, Response II

“As teens move through different social environments—and interact with different groups of friends, interest groups, and classmates—they maneuver between different contexts that they have collectively built and constructed” (Boyd 41).

As I read these words it struck me that standard class policies about cellphone use are as antiquated as the standard lecture format. I wonder what would happen if, rather than trying to situate the class outside of social networks, we intentionally situated the classroom in that matrix of social networks. The naïve idea that the classroom can exist in a space prior to technologies that spawned the term social networks is as unworkable as all utopian ideals. If we are looking for ways to encourage student interaction, why do we seek to limit that interaction? (In another post, I suggested we distrust technology because it takes control out of our hands. But, that control was always illusionary in the first place.)

Ah, but how to create that space. That's the rub. 

Boyd, Danah. It's Complicated, The Social Lives of Network Teens. 2014: New Haven CT, Yale UP.

A Possible Motivation for Resisting Online Teaching.

In "Arts of the Contact Zone, "Mary Louise Pratt writes that, “The lecturer's traditional (imagined) task" is "unifying the world in the class's eyes by means of a monologue that rings equally coherent, revealing, and true for all, forging an ad hoc community, homogeneous with respect to one's own words” (39).

I can't shake this image of the lecturer in control, creating a community in his or her own image. Ah, it's what all of us long for. Yet, is it the best way for students to learn, particularly if our goal is for students to think for themselves? 

I remember one of those experts that the administration periodically invites on campus, usually for large sums of money. He insisted that critical thinking consisted of teaching students to think like us. I was always uncomfortable with that idea. 

If our goal is to teach students to think for themselves, certainly what I mean by critical thinking, then the measure of our success are those students who disagree with us, who think differently than we do, who reject our assumptions. If students all come out of our classes thinking like we do, we have failed. 

Yet, if we go online, there is the danger that we might lose control, that students might have a different "take away" than we envisioned, that they might actually be able to think for themselves instead of letting us do that for them. 

   

Teaching writing and resisting the textual

I think that it is particularly ironic when writing instructors resist online teaching. After all, we teach writing because we believe it is more than simply a critical skill; it is necessary to critical thinking and dialectic. We teach writing because we think it has intrinsic value. We teach writing because we think we can reach out and touch others through what we write. Then we insist that students need face-to-face interaction to really learn.

If we then add multimodal writing, something that has become increasingly valued in writing classrooms, the resistance to online becomes even more baffling. Why teach students how to include video, illustration, audio in their texts, how to design webpages, how to communicate clearly and effectively through internet mediated texts, if we don't think we are capable of communicating that way ourselves?

It's Complicated, The Social Lives of Network Teens

Reading It's Complicated, The Social Lives of Network Teens, by Danah Boyd. (Yale UP, 2014) Was thinking about writing a review, then decided that periodic reading notes while working my way through the book might be as effective. I like reading notes because they allow me to return to what was going through my brain as I was reading. All too often, thinking about a text after reading it revises previous thought processes.

In the introduction, Boyd argues that "most teens now go online to connect to the people in their community," that these online communities provide "a space to hang out and connect with friends." She goes on to write that, "Teen's mediated interactions sometimes complement or supplement their face-to-face encounters" (4-5). Thus, the internet has replaced the Mall, which, with the advent of another technology, the car, replaced the neighborhood, as the local for teen interaction. Thus, public spaces have become what Boyd refers to as "networked publics" (5).

I'm willing to buy this argument, which counters the dominant narrative that social networks are replacing real, that is face-to-face, relationships. But, I'm going to need more. Read on, right?

At question for me isn't whether her basic thesis is right, that social networks simply "mirror, magnify, and make more visible the good, bad, and ugly of everyday life" (24), but whether she offers insights that those of us who teach, whether our teaching is face-to-face, hybrid, or online, can use to engage the students we teach.