Richard Byrne had an interesting post on Monday, School Administrators Never Saw It Coming. In it, he reposted an interview with Clay Shirky describing the impact of social media on hierarchy and leadership.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veddyHSj3KE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]
This lead me to wonder about the impact of social media on the effectiveness of educators. At what point, as students have access to more and more mobile/social technology, do they begin to assert, in mass, the fact that educators need to offer more than what they can get via the web in order to sustain their interest, motivation, and respect? There have been many debates about whether or not to allow technology in classes as it can supposedly detract from the learning process. To flip things around, how do we as educators change our practices such that we integrate the distractions and leverage them to our advantage?
When my sister graduated from Michigan, the President of the University stated, “Only brevity beats the beach ball.” What can be said about beating the technology?