If You Can't Tweet E'm Join Them

If I’m honest this week’s readings were a considerable challenge, in particular the Straub (2009) and Osiurak, Jarry and Le Gall (2010) articles. This was really my first exposure to the academic discussion of affordances and while I think I get the main idea, drilling down into the theory left me a bit overwhelmed. Straub’s work was so thick with so many layers it seem analogous to a set of Russian nesting dolls.

After yesterday’s class and having read several of my classmates blog posts – in particular Najia’s on the use of cell phones in classrooms and the adoption of technology in general I think I have a better understanding of what Straub was getting at with the notion of adoption. In looking at the article again and thinking about the adoption of technology amongst my teacher friends – particularly their perceptions of cell phone use in schools -- I think there is a glaring omission – When teachers adopt as a means to meet students where they are at or as a means of surrender. (In my case I just gave up after growing tired of losing arguments with 16 year olds, definitely not good on the self-esteem.) And there is a body of new research that looks at how using Twitter can benefit students academically.

So, after some serious reflection I think it’s important to remember that by high school students have become accustomed to phones in their informal environments almost as if they are an extension of themselves.  In a recent conversation with a dear teacher friend of mine he commented on how much more aware kids were about current events. He mentioned how on several occasions students would drop by his classroom after their lunch to ask his opinion on a recent political event – often an event that had just occurred while he was teaching or eating lunch and hadn’t yet seen in his news feed. He credited this access to information and interest in politics to social media and instead of fighting against the use of cell phones in school he embraced it and has worked to do some really neat things with QR codes and current events.