Implications of social media and peer-based learning?

Reading the MacArthur Foundation Report, "Living and Learning With New Media," was interesting to me. At first look, I was very skeptical about the implications of self-directed, autonomous learning of students using technology, let alone social and recreational networking sites. Maybe I'm sounding like my parents and teachers, but shouldn't that be for fun, and not for school? It is one thing to accept that the means of social interaction is changing with the digital age, but quite another to encourage it as a form of "learning" in schools. I hardly think of facebook and myspace as interactions that should be encouraged in youth, partly because I feel like they are somehow a lesser form of social interaction. This implication is exemplified for me in the notorious "facebook fight" or "text-message break-up." They seem funny or trivial, but having someone break-up with you via a social networking sight is understood to be the lowest form of interaction, and I believe this is because even kids immersed in the digital culture understand that interacting solely through digital media (to the extent of even relying on it for the utmost social activities, such as ending a relationship) doesn't even qualify as a legitimate form of interaction. It was this belief that kept me from accepting the ideas presented in the MacArthur article, as I felt like as people, let alone teachers, we should not encourage these interactions in school, which may very well be the last place of the face-to-face interaction.

Up until this point in the class, I have been relatively gung-ho about integrating technology into the classroom, not only because of the self-directed learning inherent to the medium, but also to provide students with the tools they need to function in a changing society. Is social networking a form of learning? It uses the same tools that other forms of technology require, it encourages students to follow their own interests and discover their natural affinities, and it encourages not only independent learning, but also emphasizes the importance of collaboration for both the sake of connecting and learning more. Isn't this what we, as teachers, ultimately want to accomplish in our classrooms? Reading Will Richardson's blog post about the articles definitely furthered these sentiments for me. I still don't like saying that facebook should be used as a learning tool, but I find myself agreeing more that "erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning. Participation in the digital age means more than being able ot access 'serious' online information and culture" (MacArthur, 2). While I am still not able to say that these tools belong in the classroom, I definitely understand why some people think they should, and I agree that teaching children to pursue their own learning interests and helping equip them with the technological understanding they will need in the world should certainly be a goal in the classroom, even though I'm still unsure whether all social networking media can/shoud be/is a vehicle for achieving these goals.