Debate: "Social Networking: does it bring positive change to education?"
The Economist (Economist.Com) is sponsoring a series of debates on the future of education. Each debate topic considers the educational impacts of technology, globalization, and changing nature of social relationships. The third (and final) debate, which runs from from January 15th through January 25th, focuses on "social networking," specifically on the proposition :
The debate is based on an online variant of the Oxford Debate rules - each speaker has three chances to advance his view - an opening statement, a rebuttal, and a final summary. Observers (who must register) may participate, mainly though a discussion with the moderator who will raise relevant points to the debaters. In addition, Observers may also vote for the side of the proposition they most agree with.
Speaking to the Affirmative: Ewan McIntosh, National Adviser on Learning and Technology Futures for Learning and Teaching Scotland. Mr McIntosh writes for The Guardian newspaper and the BBC on social media and learning issues, speaks internationally and consults for organisations on how social media can be harnessed for to improve learning in the organisation
Spealing to the Negative: Michael Bugeja, Director of Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, ISU. Mr. ,Bugeja is the author of 21 books, with research often being cited by NYT and IHT to name a few, Dr Bugeja was among the first to analyse the use of Facebook before many professors realised that most of their students were already registered and of Second Life before many students had ever heard of it.
Moderator: Robert Cottrell, Deputy Editor of Economist.com. Mr Cottrell has been deputy editor of Economist.com for the past two years, and online editor of Intelligent Life magazine since its re-launch this year. He is based in New York.
Image source: BBC News, Ban Foxhunting? - Oxford Union says no, Thursday, October 22, 1998 Published at 20:23 GMT 21:23 UK. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/198249.stm
Comments
Thank you for covering these debates. I’m not sure your readers are aware of what happened yesterday at The Economist web site.
The Iowa State Daily has carried a factual story about it, which you can access here:
http://media.www.iowastatedaily.com/media/storage/paper818/news/2008/01/16/News/Glitch.Highlights.Directors.Point-3153496.shtml
The Economist also issued this statement today:
Readers of Michael Bugeja's opening statement as first posted on January 15th may have been struck by its brevity--usually a virtue, but in this case taken to excess. A mechanical error truncated the statement halfway through. Readers were denied access to the conclusion of Dr Bugeja's intended argument, which added much to the shape and power of the whole.I can only ask, in the interests of fairness, that if you saw Dr Bugeja's opening remarks early on Tuesday, please do go back and read them again in their completed form. We will be extending by one day the period between the opening statements and rebuttals (and setting back the close of voting by a day), to make allowance for this.In his later paragraphs Dr Bugeja has addressed two points that I raised in my own opening statement. He has related his argument to a basic model of social networking, not merely to well-known social networks already in operation. And he has warned that online social networking is liable, by its very nature, to substitute for personal interaction, handicapping students who "above all need to think critically and interact interpersonally to succeed in a diverse, multicultural world".You might say that this hiccup has lent support to Dr Bugeja's argument that applied technology is dangerously fallible. My apologies again to Dr Bugeja; and to our early readers; and to Mr McIntosh, since he must now grapple with an even stronger counter-argument.
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Hi steve! I think Social medias are a good way of augmenting your networking. It depends on the mind set of individuals how they are going get involved in them and also the type of social networking you are doing changes from one set of individuals to another. For example the students generally they do it just to make friends with whom they can gossip and have fun. Where some people joins these networks in search for an ideal partner with whom they can date ...:) Now social medias are also used by many different companies for promoting their business. And popular social media sites like myspace, facebook, orkut etc they get loads of visitors per day and its a ideal place for promoting their business. I think these social networking sites are a good place where you can learn and share thoughs with others.
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