Social Software and the New Localism

Posted on August 13, 2004 by Barbara

Lee Bryant’s Headshift points to an egovmonitor piece on social software in local communities, quoting:

…we are increasingly seeing social software being used for the development of voluntary, bottom-up social networks around the common interest of the locality. In short, the internet is becoming more local. At the same time, the demands upon councils are changing. The New Localism agenda reflects a growing consensus that the needs of modern communities cannot be delivered through centralist, ‘one size fits all’ approaches”

Exactly. Heed that, standards-based education advocates: “The New Localism agenda reflects a growing consensus that the needs of modern communities cannot be delivered through centralist, ‘one size fits all’ approaches.”

It’s what we’re talking about with blogs in the classroom–how their very mutability and the fact that they are socially based allow them to adapt to whatever learning situation we are in–bending to personalities, tasks, disciplines and goals–and move students to think in terms of community instead of in terms of self. The blog is a catalyst for emergent behavior in the classroom, and even though we rarely arrive at where we thought we were going, isn’t that the point when communities convene to discuss the pressures of development, say, or students explore contemporary Irish literature, or fifth graders engage with a local issue?

Ah, and that means, someone has to relinquish control…

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Filed under: Discoveries in the Blogging World |

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