Apparently the government is proposing that primary school students should be taught how to use Twitter, Wikipedia and so on. TechCrunch has an article on it:
Please Sir, how do you re-tweet? - Twitter to be taught in UK primary schools and the BBC is also covering this:
Primary pupils 'study Twitter'. As with other government ideas related to children and the internet all this shows is that they simply have no clue as to the situation.
Firstly, there is a huge, and I mean HUGE opposition within schools to the introduction of social media resources. I have run eight courses so far this year for school librarians and the overwhelming message is that the IT has access to resources shut down tightly (and I mean that sometimes it's not possible to get access to Google Mail, delicious, obviously Facebook and YouTube, Netvibes, Twitter and the rest). Various reasons are given for this, from none at all, through to 'it's not safe', 'protecting the children', 'virus concerns' and so on. In some instances the technical support team block access to things when they don't even know what they do! This was reported to me by one school librarian recently. Of course, if the government suggests that it's a good idea to open access to different resources it's going to happen isn't it - just don't hold your breath. All too often the IT squad appear to be more interested in making their own lives easier rather than doing the job of supporting staff.
Second problem that we've got is the most of the staff don't have any concept - at all - about these resources. Again, school librarians are reporting to me that it's difficult to get staff interested in resources or doing anything new at all. Who is going to teach pupils all of this stuff?
Finally, the concept is entirely wrong. Pupils should NOT be taught about Wikipedia and Twitter. These are simply tools used for another purpose. Students need to be taught effective search, and effective communication. Concentrating on an individual tool is pointless, because that tool isn't always going to be there; it may crash and burn or simply be unavailable. Students need to be shown the best way to appreciate and evaluate knowledge from wherever it comes; via Wikipedia, a Google search, a newspaper or a library book. Concentrating on tools and not processes is not going to achieve anything at all.
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