Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Celebrating Social Media Day




Today is social media day and 500 cities around the world are celebrating it. I have just checked the list and saw that Brasilia (the city I live in) is one of them. It is for sure a day to celebrate because it has to do with the development of tools that allowed users to move from passive consumers to producers of web content. As a language teacher and a citizen, I am happy to see the possibilities it creates for my classes when my students and I have moved beyond using the web to do treasure hunts. Now we can create our own treasures and share them with the world. The media becoming social is a bit like the fall of the Bastille of official, filtered, censored web. Before blogs, you tube, social networking, and so many other possibilities of publishing content, one could only have his or her voice heard online if  he or she possessed very advanced computer skills.  The so called social web has democratized the cyberspace allowing anyone to share their ideas in any way they choose with the advantage of getting feedback. Social media transformed the one way approach to publishing into a multi party conversation. The reasons why we should celebrate social media are many. I myself just wish some more people join us, social media fans, to make the cyber and the real world a better place.
José Antônio

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