Compatibilities and Incompatibilities between Social Media Culture and School Culture | W10 Q1 | Discussion

The Greenhow et al. (2009) article discusses the myriad of ways in which Web 2.0 broadens the range of teaching and learning experience by facilitating activities such as collaboration, authorship, publication, etc. across various online platforms. I found the development of professional identities on social media, as well as the “research toolkit” which refers to capitalizing on Web 2.0’s affordances for data collection and research-related practice to be the most persuasive connections between Web 2.0-enabled activities and teaching & learning practices. Crook (2012) argues that educators should consider the “fit” between a Web 2.0 technology—its features, the characteristics of the activities it enables, and its associated culture—and the culture of schooling, or the culture of teaching & learning.

I am less convinced of the relevance of youth’s identity-formation/socialization-related activities to academic learning. As stated by researchers involved in the Digital Youth project: “children’s passion and creativity with digital media have been nurtured more by peer group sociability than by academic learning” (p. 250). This argument was reinforced by Crook’s (2012) findings, which demonstrate youths’ innate desire to maintain a “separation” between their online social activities and identities and in-school practices. In addition to students’ reluctance to merge out-of-school activities into school settings, Crook’s findings highlight the qualitative differences between Web 2.0-enabled activities and resources—the “collaboration” in an online forum differs from the “collaboration” experienced in face-to-face discussions or synchronized group activities. To ensure a better “fit” between Web 2.0 and school settings, greater consideration could be given in selecting the appropriate medium/tool for the given operating characteristic (p. 78).