Using character and acting to raise awareness of pretense and marketing on social media

I had the opportunity to co-teach a lesson on character in a Theater Arts class and it was a pretty interesting experience. The goals of the 90 minute session were:

1. To have students explore their character by attempting to Tweet in character
2. To raise awareness of nuance, marketing and manipulative behaviors that occur on Twitter and other social media
3. To promote savvy social-media behaviors, even if that does mean 'acting'

The lesson structure was as follows:

1. Begin with survey about social media use
2. Presentation: Analysis of Taylor Swift's Twitter account
3. Tweet-a-Character assignment: compose 10 Tweets using character (previous lesson was character analysis)
4. Peer Analysis of Tweet-a-Character
5. Closing reflection including short post-survey

In addition to fitting into the class, I used this lesson as a research study.  

The pre-activity survey revealed the following:

• Of the 103 participants, 73% said that they do follow actors/actresses, politicians, musicians, and other celebrities on Twitter, Instagram or Social Media
• Of those that follow musicians, actors, etc, students tended to agree that they were more likely to go to a movie or download a song if they followed an artist on Twitter or Instagram

After the presentation and role-playing activity, 37% of respondents were less likely to believe in celebrities online profiles, seeing them as more commercial in nature.  The vast majority of respondents, over 60%, continued to believe that some celebrities are more authentic than others, believing that others are genuine and not driven only for sales or fame.

I'm still processing the data and reflecting on the activity, but I do think it was a worthwhile exercise, one that is worth more time over and above the 90 minutes I gave it. Any interested reader may request the lesson. I will send all 4 files. 

Twitter and Truth: More questions than answers

A few weeks ago I had the honor of presenting a Webinar for the Easy Bib Summer PD Series. This presentation was a real stretch for me. I have spent enough time on Twitter to feel comfortable and I have done considerable research on Twitter as an instructional and informational tool and even some practice teaching with Twitter and about Twitter. However, given the complexity of the subject, I think my presentation, as given is at best a starting point, for myself as well as my audience.

The focus of Twitter in the Classroom, was on Twitter as an information source. My central point is that people are increasingly getting information via social media and are more influenced by peers in the Twitterverse than by traditionally published material. Opinions and perspectives are formed online by interactions with others and the posting of influential individuals, some of whom are actual experts but mostly by self-appointed 'experts,' who may or may not be passing on correct information. To me, it's obvious that librarians need to be a part of the conversation on and about social media, or risk becoming irrelevant as information professionals.

So who am I? I'm really another self-appointed expert with some experience, but by no means a genuine expert. I can say, I've done much reflecting and additional learning about this massive subject and read some contrary viewpoints such as this one by Molly McHugh.

Ms. McHugh is an informed skeptic that is mostly dismissive of Twitter as an information source. I agree with many of her points, especially the fact that information on Twitter is largely suspect because it is contaminated by commercial interest and public relations.

Nevertheless, my point is that as educators we need to train our young people to recognize self-promotion and sensationalism in its natural context and be able to sift through it to glean useful insights. In my talk, I was primarily concerned with conspiracy theories, because they are prevalent on social media, while traditional library information sources generally do not publish conspiracy theories as fact.

Training young people to recognize conspiracy theories is, in my view, vital to the preservation of democracy. That's actually a relatively straightforward process, but one I feel librarians are neglecting. And what are we as librarians if we're not concerned about the role of information in preserving democracy?

What's more complicated is addressing the whole notion of 'who is an expert?' and utilizing experts' perspectives in online research. While I can't claim to know where all this social media is taking us, I know that Twitter has dramatically altered publishing and the overall information ecosystem for better and worse. Let's pay attention.

Here's the recording of my Webinar.

Retweet! Not Reteach!

For quite a while now, I've believed that the skill of sorting and using information is of far greater importance than merely acquiring the information covered in the school curriculum. Therefore it behooves us to design learning experiences that require students to do that as we move through the curricula.

Today, students are accessing more information than ever via social networks. Unfortunately, young people are often abandoned to learn on their own and much of what they learn is just plain incorrect. Schools must teach skills and habits for students to not always believe what they read in the Twitter stream and to seek out the truth.

My latest presentation exhorts librarians to take the lead in teaching the habits and skills. Using current examples, including the Gabby Douglas hair controversy and the Apple asymmetrical screw hoax, I demonstrate how fake stories are quickly generated, spread and believed by millions of people. In my opinion, the detective work in getting to the bottom of these stories is downright fun!

Much of the material here is owed to Howard Rheingold and his amazing book Net Smart, which is currently serving as my reference Bible for planning my teaching. I welcome comments and requests for further explanation on any slide. Not all of the meaning is expressed, as much of it was spoken in my talk last week.

Retweet, not reteach! from Dallas ISD New Tech High School

Getting Social: My presentation to 9th grade students

I'm grateful for a job that gives me the opportunity to talk to young adults about social media and it's importance to their futures. Most of the talk in schools that I have seen primarily focus on the 'fear factor' and telling students what they shouldn't do. I wanted to talk solely about the positive possibilities of social media with the intention of opening up students' minds about the tremendous benefits of using social media effectively.

For this talk, I used CPS systems to anonymously poll members of each class. The slides with the tan background and black text are the questions for the 'clickers.'

Getting social

View more presentations from Dallas ISD New Tech High School

The interactive nature of the talk gave me some interesting insights into the students thinking. Here are a couple of things I learned:

1. Students have a fairly low regard for expert opinions. They had a strong preference for getting information from Google or people they know, but seemed completely disinclined to seek out an expert in a field. I will certainly follow up on this when presenting on sources and credibility of information!
2. In one class only 1 of 20 students reported writing for their own blog, while in the others the percentage of bloggers was right at 50%. The class with only one blogger was also the least engaged and receptive to my message. To me this suggests that teaching social media in itself would be ineffective without addressing the students' writing abilities and confidence in their communication skills. 

I hope others can benefit from my experience and would love to here from other educators that are presenting or wish to present a positive message regarding social media to teenagers.

Seven Effective Twitter Habits for Teachers

Twitter has occupied so much of my thinking lately and now it's time to blog about it. There are so many good guides to getting started on Twitter, that I won't do that here. Twitter is so important in today's world, that I believe all educators should be involved. Here are some simple ideas and procedures for Twitter teachers. My apologies if they are not original.

1. Follow a Twitter feed about current events via TwiterFall or some other hashtag aggregator. Good activity for getting analyzing points of view, fact vs. opinion, etc.

2. Locate hashtags for big global sporting events such as Tour De France, World Cup and the Olympics and see how many languages you can identify in the feed. Then try translating to English.

3. Identify and follow thought leaders, writers and major figures in your content area/field. If you start interacting with them, try inviting them to your class or conference. It never hurts to ask!

4. Start discussions on Twitter and give out a prize for the best Tweet.

5. If you do anything creative, such as a video or a killer lesson be sure to share it and Tweet it.

6. If you present anything for a local training, a conference, put it on Slideshare and tweet it.

7. After you've been on Twitter a while, you will naturally develop your Professional Learning Network (PLN), the folks that share your passion. Be sure to interact with them and thank them for their ideas. If you go to conferences, make sure you meet them in person. That's probably the best part of being a Tweeter.