I remember riding my bike to my friends house just to see if he wanted to go see a movie with me later on that evening, he didn’t, I rode my bike home. At the time his father had a state-of-the-art 28k Dial Up Modem, he was so entranced with the internet he couldn’t get off…and…no one could use the phone. Even without the horrible sounding modems that clogged up phone lines it used to be hard, sometimes impossible, to get in touch with someone. That has changed quite a bit from the days when I was a teenager but I feel grateful that I’ll always know what it was like not to have a cell phone, or, a computer in the classroom.
Something that I didn’t get to experience as a high school student I’m now experiencing as a college student. The way that computers, cell phones and social media have changed the way we communicate with each other and our teachers is staggering. It can’t be understated what a value to communication and knowledge exchange having social media sites have provided for students. The ease that you can find information on your class with sites showing your grades, assignments and study guides in itself is a huge development that is only going to make education easier in the future. Now, not only can you access any information you want about your class, you can also connect with every student from practically anywhere. Facebook specifically helps because it seems like every single student and person for that matter is on it. You have a source to connect people, exchange notes, ideas, photos, news updates and share interesting articles to discuss in class. I’m taking 4 classes at the moment and there is not a single one that doesn’t include some kind of social media. All but one have Facebook groups to connect with teachers and other students, the other one uses a social new sharer called ‘Delicious’. StumpleUpon is another site that would be considered a social news media, where sharing and commenting on different articles is the main service.
This is a quickly changing world that we live in, not just technologically but culturally. The more we are able to share ideas and values the more different cultures will be intertwined. There hasn’t been a time in humanity’s past that the actually potential has existed to connect every human being to one another. We’re not there yet but the time is coming soon and the people leading the charge are young, in school and on Facebook.