Social media is becoming increasingly important in teaching and research work but tutors must remember, it's a conversation not a lecture, says Ernesto Priego
Ernesto Priego
Guardian Professional
Monday 12 September 2011
n chapter two of Christian Vandendorpe's From Papyrus to Hypertext
titled: In the beginning was the ear, Vandendorpe says it took millenia
"for literature to free itself from primary orality, albeit not
completely". In the beginning all reading was done out loud, and it was
not until the 12th century that books were created for silent reading.
Orthographic signs and the separation between words had appeared around
the 7th century, but did not become common until the 9th century amongst
the learned communities of monks. Walter J Ong, in his classic study of
writing and orality, Orality and Literacy defines as the "technologizing of the word" the process of developing a new relationship between language and thought.
Something similar is happening today in academia. Just like Augustine marveled, in the year 400, at the sight of Ambrose reading
in silence, many members of academia marvel (or react with rejection)
at the rapid changes in the production and dissemination of scholarly
work and interaction between academics and those "outside" academic institutions. Thousands of scholars and higher education institutions are participating in social media (such as Twitter), as an important aspect of their research and teaching work.
There is still considerable resistance to embracing social media
tools for educational purposes, but if you are reading this article you
are probably willing to consider their positive effects. New
technologies have slow adoption cycles, and often the learning curve is
steep. Those already using these tools within academic contexts should
not be considered a priori as "the converted"; perception and usage of
social media varies wildly, and due to the inherently fluid and
malleable nature of the platforms themselves we are still in the process
of assessing all their possibilities.
Mobile phones and tablets
enable the user in producing content, and to publish and disseminate it
online. The microblogging platform Twitter is purposefully designed to
exchange information and to facilitate reciprocal communication and
attribution, therefore enabling the creation of communities of
individuals interested in common topics. But the easy part of tweeting
is publishing content; the difficult side is actually committing to
active public engagement.
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