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Proposal Suggests UK Students Study Wikipedia and Twitter
An anonymous reader writes "Who needs crusty old rubbish like the Victorian era or World War II? Instead, an Ofsted report leaked to The Guardian details of proposals to teach UK primary school children how to use Wikipedia, Twitter, podcasts and blogs. Presumably they're already au fait with b3ta and 4chan. And you already can't get the kids off Bebo without a crowbar."
It's a stupid idea by people who are trying to appear "down with the kids". I can't think of anything worse to teach children than to use Wikipedia as a primary source of research and to use Twitter as a primary means of communication.
IT teaching in schools needs to improve, but from a technical perspective, not by letting kids spend a couple of hours a week in school doing what they do at home every night anyway. Far more would be gained by teaching kids how to use and administer computers than simply jumping on whatever the current internet bandwagon is and letting kids arse around with it.
Well, I'm not really for skipping learning about WWII, but learning how to use Wikipedia and how to blog sound like excellent things to teach kids. Should we really teach kids that knowledge comes from a single authoritarian figure like a teacher, or should we tell them that they need to investigate numerous versions of the view of history?
Learning how to use Wikipedia, including how to read the discussion page sounds fantastic. Take a topic, show how there are a lot of varied opinions about it. Show how consensus is formed and most importantly show that we can't always trust consensus.
Blogging including micro-blogging like Twitter is also a very good idea. It's almost impossible to get kids to see the relevance of writing. Read some blogs. Show how poor writing makes someone look like an idiot. Show how good writing makes someone look smart.
Now granted, they probably won't teach it like that. But they *could* and I think it would be a very good idea.
They aren't teaching them how to "use" Wikipedia in the sense of editing it, they are teaching them to apply critical thinking skills. That is to say, to analyze an article for themselves, determine whether or not it is valid, to use it as a springboard for jumping off into other resources, etc.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Twitter is oh so much more than "I just took a dump" It's an Instant Messaging protocol.
Kids need better practical web education. They need to know that a prince in Nigeria isn't going to give them $1m, that the 11 year old girl who wants to meet them in a quiet street at 9pm alone probably shouldn't be trusted.
From keeping online and offline persona seperated to avoiding libel on forums there proper nettique needs to be addressed in education. When I was at school pretty much the only 'how to act on the net' education we got was "if you use capitals, it looks like you're shouting". Of course that was a time when few people were on the net as you were charged by the minute.
...they are teaching them to apply critical thinking skills....
If only that were the case. Most teachers don't have this facility, and so are incapable of teaching it. Most children won't ever learn these skills, and actually couldn't care less about them. Sad, but true.
As a result, can't we just stick to basic education, at least until a reasonable age, say 16, where the dumbasses who are destined for a life on the dole start skipping school most of the time ?
I guess Twitter the service and Twitter the Slashdot user have something in common. They're both pretty pointless.
There's a few people who can use Twitter well, but mostly it's just an overload of useless information. But some people seem lost without it.
Teaching them how to admin a linux VM would be more useful.
That's one end node of the tree of knowledge that is computer science / IT. Far better to teach kids how to research and in what situations Wiki and Google are invaluable.
Squirrel!
Completely disconnect kids from reality AND factual history and you've got a guaranteed pliable population. Works for me.
One thing that intrigues me a lot is the number of mentions that service in getting in the media (even mainstream media) in the past weeks. Slashdot, for instance, along with this article has other two in the frontpage (Researchers Can ID Anonymous Twitterers and Build Your Own Open Source Twittering Power Meter.
But it is not only Slashdot. Lance Armstrong is doing it, I heard about it the other day on television, something in the lines of "Lance Armstrong informed the public that it may miss the Giro using this novely service, Twitter". Actually, even Associated press "noticed the trend" (or is propagating a well thought press release, depending on what really happened) and released a list with the nicknames of some of the celebrities that uses the service.
That reminds me of what happened last year, lots and lots of stories (even on Slashdot) about Second Life, how people were making money on Second life, virtual property on Second Life, virtual child abuse on Second Life, and so on and so forth, lots of stories with several things in common: lots of mentions of the service name, stock footage of people using it, a long description of the service in question, fake and minor controversies.
Sometimes I wonder if it is only a fad, a hype that is propagated naturally by the collective hysteria or if there are really people in the Marketing business powerful and competent enough to orchestrate a press campaign so pervasive and organic that looks like genuine public interest.
you really think there are many people who know how to google?
lots of people know me for being good at finding things with google, while imo it's just thinking of good keywords and look at the results to see how to modify your search
and yet, it seems i hardly see any people capable of that, so if they could teach kids that google will only support you, and not magically give you an answer on everything from the first try with just about any keyword.
Google will work great if you give it the additional knowledge and insight of your own brain, but by itself it's fairly weak. and it seems very few people seem to understand that...
and frankly, why wouldn't it be good for the next generation to actually be good at finding information on the internet? it'll probably be even far more present than it is for us...
This is pretty ridiculous. As if these kids don't already know all about these services and have used them more than their tutors.
'And this is Twitter.. it's an instant messaging protocol that allows us to share our thoughts and dreams with the world. Isn't that marvellous, children."
"Nah miss.. it's just a way for me to chat shit to my mates, innit. Look.. it's on my phone."
Ironically, that was really hard to read.
But I don't follow the 'rules' either and I'm glad you've taken the time to highlight the point.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
So you're venting your spleen on Twitter instead of dealing with work issues in person? I pity your employer
Being able to use a wikipedia (as in edit) is also valuable to learn. There are plenty of times when a private wiki would be useful if everyone knew how to edit one, create pages, etc. Instead, we get masses of emails with hundreds of recipients and no organization.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom