Owning Knowledge: thoughts about the 'Ethic of the Link'

Great interview with Jay Rosen on social media and journalism that I think bears a lot of importance for educators.

Pay close attention to the comments made concerning the "Ethic of the Link" around 4:27:

"You don't just use the web to tell people stuff, you send them to where they can learn more.... to connect people with sources of knowledge that they can use themselves so that they're not dependent on you all the time to tell them something else."

That's what we want to happen in the classroom. As we discussed concerning the Pappas article from a couple of days ago, if a student is always looking for teacher validation, that student will be lost once they leave the classroom.

We need students to validate themselves.

So, we shouldn't be giving information to the students. We should be giving students links to the information and then we should hold them responsible for following and searching the links. Classtime itself should be a conversation, a debriefing, a discussion based on what the students found.

Now, this is not unlike asking a student to go read an article so that we can discuss it tomorrow. Except in that few students are going to read a piece of paper and then, autodidactically, go off and try to find out more information. But via links, the student enters into a Web of information navigable in an inviting way; personal interest and self-motivation is cued by curiosity and made accessible by simple access to more links. And, of course in the fluid and social world of links available via Twitter, Diigo, and the like, the student actually becomes part of the process of the creation of knowledge itself. The result is ultimately one of activating ownership.

The process of actively accessing sources of knowledge rather than expecting the passive reception culled from the distribution of knowledge is the defining feature of a successful academic mindset.

We want the student to own knowledge, not lease it until the exam is through.

Validation and Authenticity

Interesting post over at Copy / Paste concerning student perceptions of what their answers mean to a teacher.

Students learn that their comments are of provisional value until "approved" by the teacher. Over time, students stop listening to each other and only focus on what the teacher says or validates.

I'm interested in how this observation applies to technology in the classroom.

There's been a lot of talk over whether or not technology 'helps' students see things more broadly, let alone whether it helps students take part in the learning process in a more authentic and effective manner.

The fact of the matter is, when it comes to the value of technology, it's all a matter of how you use it.

If your laptop/LCD setup is merely being used as a flashy overhead projector, then you might as well not be using it. If you are just using ed software to give easily graded multiple choice tests, then you might as well go with the Scantron.

The successful 21st century classroom will be the one in which the teacher's and the students' minds and the teacher's and the students' technology work seamlessly towards facilitating a fluid, transparent, open ended discussion between the teacher, the students, and the expanse of the connected network. It is a classroom that integrates authentic globally connected social media and authentic face-to-face conversation together into a learning reality.

Because when it comes to the matter of student validation, it's a matter of authenticity.

The whole thing revolves around a teacher who understands how to use and is comfortable working in a connected environment and who sets a tone of learning that suggests to the students that their answers carry the weight of intellectual identity and should be more than vain attempts to mimic what the teacher 'wants'.

The whole thing revolves around a teacher who understands how to integrate social media in such a way that the students are responding to one another and taking part in the big conversation beyond the classroom walls.

Otherwise, the students only learn to seek validity. And as Pappas states:

With no teacher to validate their comments, they naturally gravitate to other subjects where peer comments are valued - "what are you doing this weekend?"