Clickbait, Clickbait Everywhere

Hello everyone,

I would like to start my post with a bit of a rant… I think I might have a very unpopular opinion here but this exercise has really helped me to remember why I decided to close just about all of my social media accounts (except LinkedIn (connect with me!)) several years ago. After spending about three hours perusing sites such as twitter and Edmodo, following various education and technology related users and groups, and reading many of the articles that have come up over the last couple of days I really don’t think I have gained any useful knowledge that will impact my on-the job performance. From what I have seen over the past few days about 90% of the content that is posted is Buzz Feed style clickbait linking to slightly interesting, but ultimately nearly useless articles with titles like “30 ways to shake the back to school jitters” or “Is your #SchoolYrResolution similar to this submission? Share yours now!” At least for me, sifting through this garbage kills any drive I have to learn something new.

And the problem with the rest of the content, for me at least, is that it lacks both relevance and convenience. For example, over the last couple of days the department of education has posted several tweets about “Education Innovation Clusters” (EIC). Sounds like something that I, an Academic Tech Coordinator should know about right? Probably, but will knowledge of EICs help me improve my on-the-job-performance? Is using my valuable time to learn about EICs going to help me solve any of my problems? In this case the answer is no. I spent about an hour researching EICs but, given my current workload and responsibilities I cannot see how the time I spent learning about EICs will result in any real measurable or observable changes. After about four hours of work I can’t say I haven’t learned anything really useful from twitter or Edmodo. As a PLN platform, these social media sites aren’t as effective as they are hyped up to be.

Note: I am not saying these social media sites are not great academic tools. I just think that that are inefficient as PLNs.

Ok, rant over, sorry about that…

As I stated before, through twitter I learned about the concept of EICs. EICs are groups around the US that bring together education partners, research partners, and commercial partners to promote and develop innovative uses for technology in education. The US Department of Education identifies these groups, supports them, and publishes their contributions for the benefit of all educators.

Is this something I can easily adapt and utilize in my classroom?

No. The article itself offered no useful information that will impact my immediate on-the-job performance. In the future results published by this DoE program might be more useful to me. But I don’t plan on regularly checking back in to this specific resource.

What level of Blooms Taxonomy or ISTE standards does this resource fall under?

This recourse itself does not fit into Blooms taxonomy as it does not have much (or anything) to do with Blooms three domains.

As for ISTE standards this might reflect many of the standards such as NETS T:

• ·      1a - Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
• ·      3b - Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.
• ·      5a - Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.
• ·      5d - Contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community.

What is my opinion of personal learning networks?      

PLNs are effective professional development tools when they are specific and relevant, factors which, many times, are not reflected by social media platforms. See my rant above.

Thanks for reading!
Anthony