The document discusses the roles of Second Life and Facebook in educational settings, emphasizing their potential to enhance pedagogy and student engagement. It critiques current policies on social networking in schools while advocating for its integration as a culturally relevant pedagogical tool. The authors call for educators to leverage social networking for collaborative and constructivist learning rather than ignore its significance in students' lives.

1. +
Musing on Morphing: Reflections on teaching and learning
through Second Life and Facebook.
Carolyne Ali-Khan
John W. White
University of North Florida
The Information Fluency
Conference
(February 26, 2014)

2. +
Words, words words….
Facebook Second life

3. +
Questioning
cyberspace
How are facebook and
Second Life used in formal
educational spaces?
• What do they bring
to our classrooms
and pedagogy?
What should we worry about/
look forward to? ?

4. +
Second Life
Simulacra for real!

5. +
Smearing myself into the virtual
Cyber selves, avatars and dopplegangers.
Are we there yet?

6. +
Teaching and learning in Second Life
A rose by any other name (in a rose garden)?

7. +
Sprites, Hallucinations and
Thespians

8. +
The pixilated classroom
Being and belonging

9. + For More Information
For more information on Second Life, education and Shakespeare, see:
Ali-Khan, C. (In press). ‘More things in heaven and earth Horatio’ - Seeing and believing in Second
Life. In C. Milne, K. Tobin, and D. Degenero [Eds.], Sociocultural Studies and Implications for
Science Education: The Experiential and the Virtual. Springer Science + Business Media.

10. + Social Networking as Pedagogy
Social networking is not only ubiquitous, it is also:
Culturally relevant
Inherent in literature (Gatsby used it for his purposes)
An example of situated literacies and the new literacy studies

11. + Social Networking as Pedagogy
State and school district policies send students, teachers, and parents a mixed—and
hypocritical—message on the value and purposes of social networking: they
encourage its use for fundraising and for school-community connections, they
encourage teachers to teach about social networking/social media safety, but they ban
social networking in classrooms.

12. +
Social Networking is Nothing New: It is and has always been
central to the “Arts,” to History, to Science, etc.
We can and should teach and encourage connectedness—and demonstrate it as a
metaphor to the workings of the ‘real’ world—rather than ignore it. Social networking is a
means toward achieving this goal.

13. + Social networking can exemplify socially-mediated learning
and allows for multi-genre presentations of student
understanding/learning
Social networking makes extensive use of the concepts of situated literacy, the negotiated
and contextual nature of meaning-making, and can encourage the use of code switching,
consideration of audience, and the use of multiple forms of literacy and expression.

14. VS
+ The Choice: Social Networking as Pedagogy or Social
Networking as Null Curriculum?
Our research shows that social networking can be a collaborative, constructivist, and
culturally relevant learning tool. As educators, we can try to harness some of its power for
learning or we can continue down a reactionary (and sensationalistic path), thereby further
distancing schools and curricula from students’ lives and interests.

15. + For More Information
For more information on using social networking to teach literacy, see:
White, J.W., & Hungerford-Kresser, H. (May 2014). Character journaling through social networks:
Exemplifying tenets of the New Literacy Studies. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 57(8).
or visit http://johnwesleywhite.net/wordpress/?page_id=529

16. +
Final
Thoughts
Are we there yet?
Bodies once removed

17. +
Discussion
questions

18. +
For more information
John W. White: j.white@unf.edu
Carolyne Ali-Khan: c.ali-khan@unf.edu
Also See:
White, J.W., & Hungerford-Kresser, H. (May 2014). Character
journaling through social networks: Exemplifying
tenets of the New Literacy Studies. Journal of
Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 57(8), 642-654.