Social Networking and Global Awareness

"In the age of globalizaton, (social networking) is a tremendous opportunity to connect students with other students who have similar interests as well as different experiences" (Klopfer, Osterweil, Goff & Haas, p. 11). At my work, we are in the process of recruiting schools to participate in a social network connecting students in the USA, Japan and Pakistan, and the reactions from teachers has been interesting. Not surprisingly there is often an age gap, with younger teachers in all three countries--perhaps because they feel more confident and comfortable with the new media--signing up more quickly. We currently are running a pre-pilot program with one school in Connecticut and one in Tokyo. I visited the school in Connecticut recently to talk with the students and watch them interact with the site. I was, to be frank, a bit concerned before meeting the students. While they had uploaded quite a bit of photos and blog entries, the Japanese students had only added one or two very short posts. With recent events in Japan plus the fact that they were on school vacation, this lack of input was expected and not surprising. Even so, I was afraid that the American students would have become frustrated with the project. Surprisingly, many of them told me that just the act of documenting their own lives had given them great insight into themselves and their culture. They began to questions the photos they had taken: were they representative of their lives? Of most people's lives in that town? What message would it send to the students in Japan? Was it an accurate representation? If indeed it was accurate, was it positive or negative? In short, it challenged the students to think critically about the way they were portraying their lives. When the Japanese students begin to upload their images (or whenever viewing anything that claims to portray a "typical day in the life" of people in another culture), these students will hopefully look at them with a critical eye.

On the topic of social gaming, I quickly wanted to mention Jane McGonigal. Back in February I heard her give a talk at the Museum of Natural History in which she proposed that well designed games can change the world. While I am not convinced that the complexities of real world problems, such as poverty and racism, can be simulated in games with enough accuracy to bring about real change, she is a fantastic and persuasive speaker. She gave a very similar talk to the one I heard at TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html. One of my favorite parts of her speech was the definition she used for play: The opposite of play isn't work, it's depression.