What is your opinion on the social media revolution and its place or lack of place in education?
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Social Media
At what point do you think elementary students will start facing social media challenges? 6th grade, 5th grade, 4th grade? I am not sure if Fbook and other social media will whole heartedly reach the 10 year old, but in our teaching lifetime it would not surprise me at all. In my opinion social media sites are here to stay, so we should try to embrace them as best we can. When I say embrace, I mean use the positives of these resources to reach our students. I know these ideas might scare some people that do not believe young students should be on Fbook or twitter. My idea is that we should try to use these as resources to teach our students and use it as a way to connect to our students in a way that they enjoy and is motivating. I know one example of a teacher using Fbook for his class. Although, he teaches high school AP US History, he has students creating historical profiles of US historical figures and influential people on Fbook. Students then are constantly asking questions and posting messages all year long. Believe it or not it is part of their overall grade at the end of the semester.
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I think that social media will move it's way into education more and more. I don't see it as something we can totally control, but rather we'll probably be put in a position where we'll have to embrace it. As teachers we're always trying to think of ways to reach our students. I think social media will be a powerful way to reach our students at a whole new level. People tend to say what they feel and are more open to sharing when they're behind a computer screen or electronic device. This might be an opportunity to reach those students who are reluctant to contribute during class. A forum for sharing without feeling threatened. Time will only tell.
ReplyDeleteI do know that one key concept regarding the success/pervasiveness of social media, is that it provides an outlet for individuals to freely create a social presence/persona that parralels their expectations of how others should percieve them (a little convoluted). The key with face book, for example, is that the user has complete control over when to update status, how, to whom..etc. It is the same with the concept of Play, it needs to be freely manipulated by the child to qualify as play.
ReplyDeleteI think that when social media tools are "harnessed" for educational purposes...the individuality of the medium ceases to be motivating. I think it is a great tool to use, as students become more and more literate with these types of interaces; and it can be explored in that capacity. However, their might be a gap between social media's drive..and transfering that drive when emplemented for systematic education.
Ted - you should look into a site called "Schoology". I visited the Minnetonka Technology Institute a few weeks ago with the district Technology Integration Committee, and I had the opportunity to see this resource in use with students as young as second grade! The interface looks very much like Facebook, but it is designed to be a secure, school-safe site - teachers design class pages, where students can lead or contribute to discussions about any number of topics. If you're interested in integrating social media into your classroom, this would be a great place to start! (I'm not sure where we're at as a district with implementing this, but I know it's something we are looking into. Check it out!)
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