web and Students

An interesting experience from the classroom:

Most of us beyond our early '20s use a term, social networking, to identify activities that have become second nature to Web 2. In a class I determined that I would introduce some scholarly social networks in order to expand their comprehension of social networking.

Luckily, I began by asking "what is social networking?" The class was large and students are often shy about speaking in front of many people. I repeated the question. No raised hands were evident. I changed the question. "How many of you do not know what social networking is?." Now I saw many raised hands.

I pursued the top a bit asking if they knew about or used Facebook, MySpace, or other sites that joined hundreds or thousands of people in communication. Most students participated in social sites.

Suddenly I realized what was happening. My students had been using social networking as a normal and  frequent activity. They were social networking as a matter of course and never needed to be told what we older folk needed a term to comprehend the activity.