WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT TSN?
Writing & Directing. Scalpel-sharp, machine-gun fire dialogue from The West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin coupled with David Fincher’s thriller-paced direction turns the typically tedious, mundane, boring world of Website construction into a gripping, exhilarating, mesmerizing adventure, consistent with the Net Gener’s “twitch speed” of playing video games. It’s like a 2-hour sprint. You won’t fall asleep.
Transition to Web 2.0. The activities chronicled as Facebook was being built represent the quintessential 2003 example of the transition from Web 1.0 to 2.0, from “read-only,” passive viewing Websites to “read-write” participatory sites. Facebook ushered in a new generation of sites that required user interaction, active participation, and content creation. Users contributed content in the form of their personal profiles, pics, comments, etc.
Social Networking. TSN is a mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime success story that changed the world of social networking. The story is like the social network itself, still in motion and constantly being revised and rewritten. Zuckerberg started a global phenomenon he can’t figure out how to finish.
MESSAGE FOR TEACHING
Watching TSN reveals the techie potential that some of your students may possess, or not. The issue is assessing and tapping your students’ abilities and potential. Here are some thoughts:
1. Measure your students’ tech skills
2. How even or uneven are they?
3. How can you or other personnel/resources level the playing field to a certain standard of performance?
4. Consider how their skills may be applied in your course
5. Leverage the momentum of TSN while it’s hot. Explore how Facebook and other social media can be used as systematic teaching tools
GO SEE IT!
As a movie, TSN received critical acclaim with 97% of the critics giving it a positive review with an average score of 9.1/10 based on 217 reviews. It has been characterized as “impeccably scripted, beautifully directed, and filled with fine performances.” If you can squeeze it into your super-busy schedule, GO, GO. Sorkin’s zingy, dazzling wordplay with his scathing wit are worth the price of admission alone.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
ROMANTICIZING THE WEBMASTER: "This Is Your Time!"
Who would have thought that the tapping on laptop keyboards and scribbling algorithms on a windowpane (not since John Nash in A Beautiful Mind) could possibly be as exciting as a James Bond or Jason Bourne spy flick? Welcome to “GeekWorld”! There’s an almost romantic aura to punching those keys at lightning speed to code a Website. The movie glorifies computer genius. Webmasters and IT professionals, listen up: “This may be your time.” It certainly is in TSN.
SIGNIFICANCE OF TSN TO THE NET GENERATION
As Sean “Napster-founder” Parker says to Zuckerberg in the film, “This is our time.” He may well have been addressing the entire Facebooking-Twittering community of Net Geners.
The goal was not to make money off the site, at least, not early on, because it will lose “all cool and credibility.” However, Zuckerberg’s genius combined with his social insecurities to create a computer chip on his shoulder the size of Quasimodo’s hump played out in his relationships throughout the film.
This film is the 1st detailed screen portrait of the Net Geners by mostly Net Gen actors. It conveyed their views on money, personal and professional relationships, careers, and responsibility to society. The movie also revealed their character, integrity, business ethics, and values, although loyalty, betrayal, and jealousy were the primary driving forces.
HOW DOES TSN DEPICT NET GENER CHARACTERISTICS?
You bet! All of my research and writing on the Net Generation over the past 2 years hit me in the gizzard as I was watching TSN. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay and David Fincher’s direction represented the confluence of so many Net Gener learner and social characteristics: tech savvy, creation of Internet content, operating at twitch speed, learning by inductive discovery, teamwork and collaboration, pressure to succeed, need for instant gratification, embodiment of change and activity, confident and assertive, trial and error problem solving, and craving social interaction—face-to-face and, especially, virtual connectivity.
TSN is like mouse candy to a Net Gener baby. What does Facebook represent in the transition to Web 2.0 technology? What message does it send teachers? Stick around for the final blog, coming to a PC/Mac near you.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
THIS IS NOT A REVIEW!
I don’t write movie reviews, but I do search for what I can learn as a teacher from movies, TV programs, plays, and musicals, and then apply those ideas in the classroom. What message can you glean from the content, dialogue, pacing, events, and characters? I reflected on those aspects of Avatar last spring and wrote about a few walk-away implications for teaching. My bias is to dismiss the negative and contentious and, instead, extract the few nuggets that teach and inspire us to consider those techniques we might not otherwise even think of using.
WHAT’S TSN ALL ABOUT?
This time it’s The Social Network. It’s the story of Mark Zuckerberg and how he founded Facebook. He was transformed from a computer genius, socially maladroit Harvard student and dropout into the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 23. The screenplay is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires. However, this flick is much more than the drama about relationships and lawsuits surrounding Zuckerberg’s quest to create the largest social networking Website. Reviewer Andy Lowe subtitled it “How to Lose Friends and Influence People.”
WHAT’S WRONG WITH TSN?
Before examining TSN’s implications for teaching, let’s be clear on what Zuckerberg perceives as an egregious error in the movie regarding his motivation to build Facebook. In a video interview by entrepreneur wannabes at Stanford University posted on YouTube in October 2010, Zuckerberg said the film misrepresented his motivation as “wanting to get girls and erect some kind of social institution.” That was dead wrong. He stated that “They [director and writer] just can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.” Incorrect pronouns aside, Zuckerberg said they instead paid meticulous attention to details such as his wardrobe, “Every single shirt and fleece in the movie is actually a shirt or fleece that I own.” At least, he wasn’t driven by money.
My next blog will examine TSN’s portrayal of the Net Generation. Stay tuned.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
