Cut and thrust

I saw a thought provoking blog post this week. Posted on the BERA blog, Peter Ford made the argument that unless academics and educationalists engage with classroom teachers on social media, they are in danger of being consigned to the periphery. Ford's argument is that currently, much of the cut and thrust of educational practice is played out on Twitter, Facebook, in blogs and other public online spaces. Classroom teachers in their tens of thousands (this is no hyperbole) have a significant presence on social media sites, where pertinent discussion is published on a daily, or even hourly basis. This is especially true in regular chats such as #edtechchat, #flipclass and #edchat. The latter has many variants, including the #ukedchat British version and #edchatie for Irish educators, and are public discussion zones where any teacher who is interested can join in to share ideas and chew over the educational issues of the day. Many teachers also regularly blog their news, views, top tips and anecdotes for others to read and learn from. In these ways, informally, educators around the world are connecting and learning from each other in powerful ways, and all for free. How many academic educationalists do the same? Not many, says Peter Ford.

Peter Ford makes a compelling case for academic blogging and social media engagement, citing several high profile politicians who have cited teacher bloggers in their speeches or who follow them on Twitter. I know this is true from personal experience. My own blog has been cited by the Irish Education Minister, while another, the US Secretary of State for Education, Arne Duncan follows my personal Twitter account. This blog, and many like it are becoming first ports of call for information, the latest news, reviews and discussion groups. My own blog is well on its way to six million views (over 100,000 views each month), and there are others that can boast significantly more visits from readers. How does this compare to academic texts? Are peer reviewed journals as well read, or as dynamically responsive to their readership?

Reading between the lines, Peter Ford seems unrepentantly traditionalist in his allegiance, while I am a unashamedly a progressive educator in my thinking and my practice. It would not be easy to find a forum where our polemic views could gain equal time, but social media is one such place where this kind of debate can be hosted. Were we to hold such a debate we would not require a room or lecture hall, and there would be no need to invite an audience. The blogs themselves would be the room and the audience would be those who were connected through social media. Excluded from the discourse would be those academics and teachers who either refused to participate in social media discussions, or for whatever other reason, were unable to be involved.

The digitial divide is very real in academia and education. The 'haves' and the 'cans' are moving along at a pace, discussing and sharing and learning from an online community of practice. The 'have nots' and the 'cannots' are in Ford's words 'in danger of being sidelined'.

Photo by emaze.com


Cut and thrust by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.