Marc Prensky, Social Networks and Interconnectedness

I've read Prensky's "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" article before. Over a year ago, when the concept was new to me. Since then I've developed some questions on whether there is actually a fine line that can be driven down the middle or rather a fuzzy gray area that most people sit in. I'll explore this in more detail in another post but for now I want to give you this background on my perspective while answering these questions.

— 1. How can we re-envision the educational potential which exists in the burgeoning number of social networks – the new media of interconnectedness? What role, if any do they play in education?

To answer this I started with a definition of social networks. I like this definition from LenovoSocial: "Social networks connect people, not just information. They power interaction instead of delivering information, giving participants the opportunity to do almost anything they would in a physical community via the Internet." Coupling this with some of the concepts I've learned in my Cognition courses, students (and people in general) learn best (remember more, transfer more) when they learn concepts in real-world situations with hands-on exploration. Sounds like a perfect match to me. Social networks, and their interconnectedness of peers and experts alike, offer a unique opportunity for educators to bring the classroom outside the school. Leverage the multitudes of virtual learning environments, imaginary worlds, multimedia self-publishing tools, interactive educational games and more to deliver an engaging teaching platform that develops higher level thinking skills critical for 21st century learners.

— 2. What has been the wider social, educational, cultural, and political impact of these new media for inter-connectedness?

In some ways I think this can be summarized best by Obama's campaign platform of CHANGE. I honestly believe that one of the biggest contributors to his win was that he was the first candidate ever to run a campaign on Facebook, Twitter and other social tools. Ok, maybe this wasn't the only way he won, but he did capture the votes of many Digital Native voters through these mechanisms. Political campaigns will never again be sucessfull without using these new social interconnectedness tools. The impact goes far wider than just politics though. As Prensky indicates in "The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native", these new media effects the way the future will communicate, share, shop, exchange, create, meet, learn, evolve and develop. his can't help but influence social, educational and cultural aspects of society. Another way that I see this interconnected already changing society is through the intense passion Digital Natives have for environmental cleanup and ecological reform. There are so many online conversations and organizations focused in this important area that it's easy for people to get connected to other people who care about these "Green" issues. More is yet to come...