Why context is key to understanding education 2.0

In my travels around the country talking to teachers and advisors about web 2.0 social media in education, the predominant focus is often context. After all, to discuss blogs, wikis, social networks and podcasts without understanding their context is rather like eating your favourite pasta dish without its all-important sauce. In essence, a pretty dry experience.

Context contains the answer to the question ‘why should we bother?‘ Well, let’s consider the following:

• Why do children spend hours making YouTube videos of cupstacking contests?
• Why do they spend 200 minutes a night online communicating with each other via IM and social networks?
• Why are TV companies falling over themselves to partner with Bebo to help salvage their dwindling viewing figures?

There are many reasons why, of course. The point is that context is crucial.

If we don’t understand the way young people live today, how can we hope to motivate and engage with them?

It is encouraging for me, however, that the ‘why bother’ question is being asked less and less when discussing web2.0 in the classroom. More and more educators realize that ‘doing nothing’ or worse, simply blocking everything, is only going to create a bigger problem in terms of disaffection and yes, e-safety.

That’s right, because an important part of the ’solution’ to e-safety is the actual teaching of media literacy. After all, does anybody teach road-safety by banning children from crossing the road altogether?

For a more detailed overview of the context for social media in the classroom, as well as real-world examples, I highly recommend watching Ewan McIntosh’s keynote speech video at the ULearn07 Conference in New Zealand in October. Ewan also has accompanying notes on his blog.