Creepy Treehouse

Cody posted an article about "creepy-tree-house" in a discussion forum a while ago. I spent some time reading it again today and reading the responses to it. One of the responders, Melanie, made some very good points that have me thinking about our use of technology in the classroom.

The thesis of the article is that students are turned off by teachers’ use of technology to lure them into the classroom. The author, Jared Stein, says that when professors require students to interact on things like networking sites or use “an institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners” that is “creepy treehouse.”

If that is true, then we are currently learning a lot of creepy treehouses. It seems to me that D2L is an example of the latter—an institutionally controlled technology.

Now Melanie responded to this article with some interesting thoughts. She said, “Negotiating power relationships and privacy issues is the greatest challenge for equity-focused classroom 2.0 educators. Unless you are teaching a web-focused course…asking students to participate in social and participatory media should require clearly defined intentions.”

We spent a good amount of time early in the class discussing privacy with media such as Facebook and Blogs. But most of that privacy had to do with keeping outsiders from reading the Blogs or not posting things on Facebook you wouldn’t want your mother to read. Is that enough to take away the creepy treehouse feel for students?

I also appreciate Melanie’s concern with power relationships. That’s an interesting concept for teachers. There is definitely a power imbalance in the classroom, and I don’t think teachers would want that to be different, otherwise there would be chaos. At the same time, some of the power can be negotiated as Melanie suggests. One way to do this is to present various technology options and find out from the class which ones feel more safe and comfortable for the students.

I also agree with Melanie when she says we must clearly define our intentions for the use of technology. If we make it clear to students why we are using a particular technology, what it will add to the class, how we hope students will use it and what we hope they will learn, it is less likely to feel like creepy treehouse.

This was a thought provoking article. Thank you, Cody, for bringing it to our attention.