Full Circle Associates

Ah, we have another community indicator. Mobilization. A bunch of high school students organized a walk out via an online bulletin board system (Sconex.com). When people mobilize, some sort of coherent community is present. When tools make that easier, does that make "commuinity easier?" I'll let that question sit quietly.

But what really caught my eye about this article, Ed-Tech Insider: School Walk Out Organized Online, by Tom Hoffman was his comments.

"With a little bit of persistence (you have to guess at some questions about the school mascot, etc., before you can register as a member of the school community) you can set up an account on the site and check out the student message boards. It is, as a teacher, difficult to read the student comments without making value judgments (or perhaps suspending your value judgments too completely) and simply observing what's going on in the community.

These message boards are, frankly, of no real interest to people outside of the school, but they should be of interest to adults in the school. We badly need some people with serious counseling experience to work up some protocols and train people in schools to use these candid windows into our students, not simply as a security measure, but as a way to better understand the kids sitting in front of us."

I am both fascinated and conflicted. Yes, this community ends up being "public" because anyone can worm their way in. Yes, understanding kids better could improve schools. But what of the stealth tactics? How do we figure out better ways to transparently exist with each other?

community_indicators, onlinecommunity