I just caught the end of the Democratic “YouTube” debate. As I was watching the follow-up discussion by some of the “you-tubers” who prepared videos, one of them mentioned that he thought we could never go back to the traditional debate format. This format felt much more spontaneous and authentic. Others, including the candidates, seemed to agree.
After watching this, I think about those of us in education.
Are we doing enough to incorporate these tools which can turn a sometimes static and prepared presentation in a classroom into something spontaneous and more authentic?
What issues are raised when you mix the “new” tools and the “old”? What happens to the idea of journalism, teachers, television?
How does connecting and networking with people you might not normally encounter bring something new to the table?
Did this “mash-up” work? How can we use mash-ups in schools with the “old” and the “new”?
And if it did work, (as I think it did), would we ever want to “go back?”
I found it fascinating too. The intelligence of the Tubers and their earnest engagement in citizenship blew me away at times. I loved the informality of it – not “schooly” at all, yet still so effective. Did the role of the emcee bother you at all? I kept thinking as I watched the whole thing on CNN.com (?), “He’s like a teacher, the way he arbitrarily tells people to start and stop talking.” I guess he had his rules to follow. But I often found them annoying.
I thought that too–and also that if CNN was choosing which videos to air, was that entirely “grass roots?”