For them, nothing is off limits.
They enjoy telling you what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner because they want to know what you ate, too. They are writing blogs and ”hanging out” on Facebook, MSN, Zapak, orkut and Twitter. They are actively engaging in the public domains of the world, virtually expressing their innermost personal thoughts on various topics. They are writing collectively, comparing points of view, not alarmed by the thought that anyone might read what they are writing.
ILLUSTRATION BY DAVE CUTLER
This is the reality of how our students live their lives. Gone are the days when students would take pleasure in writing their most secretive thoughts in diaries and hide them under their beds for fear that their parents might find them. To a B.C. (before computers) generation, today’s students are courageous thinkers, innovators and fearless warriors.
Technology has enabled this generation to boldly put out thoughts into virtual space for the scrutiny of strangers. The notion of private space, where we think and express ourselves in isolation, is becoming increasingly exposed to public view, especially in the virtual world. This new public space enables students to share their deepest thoughts and secrets online, blurring the boundaries between private and public without concern or thought of the consequences.
Yet, private space to collect your thoughts is necessary to develop creative ideas. Creativity involves play, or the need to fantasize and imagine a place, person or thing that a piece of writing will encompass. Such personal thoughts can flourish when the opportunity to play or invent without public response is provided. Now, more than ever, teachers need to help students balance public, virtual space with personal space in the classroom.
The Teacher’s Role in the New World of Blurred Boundaries
Facebook 101 speaker Chris Vollum recently spoke to middle and senior school students at Hillfield Strathallan College (HSC). Students were shocked to learn that the Facebook user agreement they had signed—the one they thought protected their privacy—did the opposite: It gave permission for Facebook to review their pages at any time, regardless of the security constraints students put in place. Understanding that anything they put online, however supposedly private, is permanently stored somewhere else where Facebook can access it was shocking to students.
Where does that leave teachers in relation to this new world of blurred boundaries? In the past, the role of the teacher was viewed as someone students saw for a couple of hours at school. Now, they see their teachers as part of their public, personal and virtual lives. Students request homework to be emailed to them, and parent-teacher interviews are sometimes conducted in a series of ongoing emails being bounced back and forth at all hours of the day. Whether we like it or not, the classroom has expanded beyond the walls of the school —and teachers are essentially available 24 hours a day. It is our duty to try to catch up (as much as possible) to our students, and at the same time acknowledge we don’t know all the answers. In order to learn in the classroom, students desire this additional connection to teachers—a virtual connection.
The Value of Private Space
Nonetheless, life without technology (even if it is temporary) has benefits, too. When it is possible, students embrace nature, their surroundings and each other. I have seen this countless times when our middle school takes students on outdoor educational excursions to do leadership and environmental initiatives. Recently, my class went to Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons to study the history of Native Americans and Jesuits. They were told not to bring any electronic devices on the trip. Needless to say, it was a very quiet bus ride, one which had multiple complaints of boredom from students who were unable to entertain themselves without technology. Such trips encourage students to solve problems by relying on personal and social experiences. Furthermore, students have to justify their solutions to themselves, without websites or online contacts at their fingertips, before presenting them to others. This is a tough challenge for anyone, including many adults who now carry BlackBerrys and iPhones permanently on their hips.
A growing concern among many scholars is that students are not risk takers because they always have a technological and social safety net. Sherry Turkle, professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), believes that children are used to ”electronic surveillance as part of their daily lives” and that ”information technology is identity technology.” Turkle suggests that students are so consumed with technology, they don’t feel like themselves without it. Likewise, when asked to write free of technology in the classroom, students struggle. Without ”electronic surveillance,” there is no spell-check, online encyclopedia or web page to reaffirm they are correct. As old forms of checking (such as dictionaries and encyclopedias) become obsolete, students are left to rely on their own critical-thinking skills to reaffirm they are on the right track.
To encourage students to rely on themselves (without technology), I try to follow the wise words of my colleague, a visual arts teacher. She methodically responds to students who have these concerns with, ”Are you happy with your work? Does it reflect what you wanted to convey to your audience? Are you happy with how hard you worked to achieve this assignment?” Asking students to reflect on what they are doing helps protect private space. It also nurtures it by affirming to students that when it comes to creativity, there is no right or wrong response.
Strategies for Everyday Learning
To be clear, I am not against technology, but I am against replacing all opportunities for private thought with only opportunities for public and virtual thought. While technology enables unprecedented access to public space, sometimes it needs to be used in a private way. Providing students with laptops in the classroom and emailing assignments, for example, help students feel as if they have more time to think, erase their thoughts, think again, and then write, without the pressure of showing writing on a piece of paper, seeing corrections, and then scratching it out and rewriting it again. This strategy allows private thoughts to coexist with technology. It also allows students and teachers to decide collaboratively if these are thoughts they want shared on a public forum.
Technology helps students process their thoughts, seek online resources and compare ideas to others simultaneously. As a result, students are able to multi-task and still do top-level work. One of our key responsibilities as teachers should be teaching students how to use public virtual space, such as Facebook and personal blogs, in a respectful way while maintaining and nurturing the private thoughts and opinions of each student. Role-modeling criticism and advice online is one way of doing this. For example, students at HSC are involved in developing blogs and web pages. Our IT system keeps this work accessible to school-only users. Another program we use is Glogster (www.glogster.com). Glogs allow students to develop personalized posters with pictures, text, video and audio clips. Students can reflect on their private thoughts first, share their work with classmates, and then possibly share it with outsiders. Students need the protective physical space of school to play safely with technology in order to learn more about themselves and their relationships with others.
A New Challenge for Teachers
Students need to learn how to differentiate personal thoughts from those that should be shared within the public space of technology. Practising these skills within the safety of the classroom will help. In his book Empowering Students with Technology, Alan November teaches students and teachers how to validate and understand how information is organized online. Interpreting web addresses as either personal or institutional sites, for example, is a good place to start, November says. Students will assume everything that is published online is accurate and chronologically ordered in terms of value and appropriateness when they do online searches unless they are told that corporations have the ability to buy top spots for online searches. As society relies on technology for many practical reasons, it has become increasingly important for teachers to bring technology into the classroom, to teach students how to critique what they read online, how to protect their personal identity, and most importantly, how to make virtual interactions personal and relevant to their everyday lives, November suggests.
This is a new challenge for teachers: to help students understand the difference between private and public space, to unravel the intertwining space, and to enjoy a balance by taking a break from technology rather than seeing going offline as punishment. Moreover, instead of viewing technology as the ”enemy” of creativity, we need to embrace it in a meaningful way and encourage its use to enhance creativity while finding ways to work without it too. The practice of varying writing exercises, with and without the use of technology, demonstrates to students that technology is a great tool—but it doesn’t always need to be the only tool when creating ideas. Without some form of dialogue between these two worlds, students risk missing the opportunity to learn from public spaces and to nurture their private and personal creative thoughts.
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