Bebo v Blackboard

Web 2.0 may hold out great promise for social networking and personal learning environments as tools to emppower student centred learning, but my first reaction to looking at Bebo this morning is that it a cross between a tabloid rag and a graffiti wall.

I had not looked at until I sawe a student post on Blackboard complaining that the Bebo users were hogging all the computers on campus. Listening to Tom Dunne’s show last week, I heard that Myspace was the trendy thing on the web, but I guess that was last week, and this week it is Bebo.

I’m used to having to curb some peoples tendancy to wander on Blackboard, although I tolerate a bit of idle chatter there to keep the flow going, but I was amazed at some of the UCC student pages on Bebo – some are written almost entirely in txt, many of the messages left were crude or amounted to little more than drunken slagging, and I couldn’t see how people would use it as a means of keeping in touch when a mobile phone is handier – if you are going to tlk txt, why nt us d fone 4 it?

We do now have two big patchs of web on campus though – Blackboard, which is old fashioned, top down, college controlled Web 1.0 for dissemination of handouts (which is all most staff use it for) and some online tutorial/discussion on one hand, and on the other the student owned and driven anarchaic Bebo pages, linked together by lists of friends, in the social network morif of Web 2.0

I had another look just to confirm my initial impression, and I was right – most of the messages are left by people who are apparently very drunk and can’t spell. I have a big problem with this inasmuch as I am trying to rework all my modules in terms of ‘Learning Outcomes’ which, if it is to be done properly requires alignment of outcomes, assessments and teaching methods, in a way that is both accesible to students and yet challenges then to rise to new levels but Bebo confirms my fear that much of my ‘target audience’ have a level of intellectual interest and ability that hovers just about the level of the ‘Daily Star’ and ‘Celebrity Big Brother’.

The other challenge is the technical one – how can we create a space on the web which can accommodate both the personal networking needs of students and the learning environment. Technially, I don’t think it is all that difficult – in fact, I think the options within Moodle (www.moodle.org) provide the tools needed to support both a ‘virtual learning environment’ and a ‘personal learning environment’ which can include messaging, personal homepages, blogs and other tools. I keep wondering why we spend money on Blackboard when Moodle is free, and better.

But if we can overcome the tech. challenge, how can we address the cultural one? The Web tools are merely the vehicle, and the big problem for advocates of Web 2.0 is how can we make room on the bus for discussions on the political philosophy of the Enlightenement or Just War theory while some of the group want to swop dirty rugby songs in a parallel thread? I don’t know, but it keeps my life interesting!


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One response to “Bebo v Blackboard”

  1. Shane Avatar
    Shane

    All I can say is that I in all respects agree. Although I did have a bebo account, I set it up simply as a way to educate people through the medium, I portrayed a Painting of various different paintings of Lords of the Admiralty during the napoleonic era, and some short facts and dates about their significant achievements, for my effort, I was branded a Brit, and when telling them i was Irish, they assumed i was a “Rich Presbytrian Unionist F**K” this is what your up against when you tackle bebo, is on a large scale ignorance of other cultures and a very pronounced polorisation of Irish people in particular reference to the North and South, but comments against the Poles, and there admirable Work Ethic, its a shame, that bebo, fuels poor spelling, worse grammar, and cultural insularism, as well a stage for drunken, and often vulgar comments being passed back anf forth.

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