There’s an article in NC State’s campus newspaper about Blackboard’s Facebook integration. I’m always interested to hear what actual students think about all the Web 2.0 for education stuff we tend to hyperventilate about. There isn’t a lot of new information in the piece, but I did love this classic piece of snarkiness:
Blackboard won’t be the last education company attempting to break into Facebook’s user pool. It’s a phenomenon that [Associate Provost Lou] Harrison called the ‘creepy tree house effect,’ defined by technological education experts as an online environment created by instructors or institutions that mimics an established and trusted environment.
The term arises from the concept that children can identify a ‘creepy tree house’ that adults built and will avoid it. Perhaps it explains why, when this issue went to press, Blackboard Sync had only 161 daily active users.
I’m just surprised that the term “creepy treehouse” made it into print, quoted from a provost, no less.
Yeah, I picture a bunch of Brooks Brothers-clad Bb execs sitting in overstuffed leather chairs around a heavy conference table as portraits look on from the dark, oak-paneled walls. One speaks: “the kids, they have this thing called ‘The Facebook;’ seems it’s a Big Deal. Let’s have the boys downstairs get us on the Cluetrain to the Long Tail or whatever so that we can get a piece of some of that Facebook action. Now, enough of this foolishness–let’s go sue somebody. [smiles from everyone; several light cigars].”
OK, I exaggerate. But I agree that the idea seems pretty suspect. I think that Those Kids often see social networking space as something that’s theirs–a place where they don’t have to be working. That’s not always true, and I think it may change as students begin to realize the importance and potential of digital footprints. So maybe I give Bb less credit than they deserve; time will tell.