Participating in this module’s wiki got me thinking about the advantages/benefits and disadvantages/challenges of working together with other members in this course.
Similar to the activity itself, I set up a list of 5 Benefits and 5 Challenges.
5 Benefits
1. working in a participatory community supports learning and collaboration.
2. the final product of the wiki shows a progression of collective intelligence.
3. sharing ideas means a change in attitude about intellectual property.
4. developing ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of information is a skill.
5. a mentorship becomes evident as experienced students pass on their experience to other students.
5 Challenges
1. contributions may be altered or voided contrary to you thinking that they contributed value.
2. changing or voiding other’s contributions seems hard to do.
3. some people do most of the work while others may feel somewhat shy to contribute, especially if it involves alterating information of others.
4. no verbal or written communication between students concerning the edits and contributions can create some isolating feelings.
5. learning to collaborate with many others to produce one final copy is challenging.
Here is the final copy of our class’ collaborative and collective wiki on the 5 strategies and 5 challenges to engaging students using social media.
5 key Strategies to engaging students using social media # Theme Strategy
1. Teach Responsibility Instead of banning devices, leverage an authoritarian style to teach digital responsibility, cyber ethics and appropriate use of technology.
2. Participation Focus on creating a learner centered environment in which each student has a voice. Make personal contact with each student and encourage participation. Allow students to realize they are not just consumers of information, they are a part of creating it.
3. Expand Learning Provide opportunities for students to meet and become experts in their area of study to encourage authentic learning and extend learning beyond classroom walls. Use social media to foster innovation.
4. Collaboration Encourage collaboration by providing opportunities for students to work together to arrive at solutions to open ended questions.
5. Lifelong Learning Extend learning beyond school hours by inviting students to plan and organize synchronous meeting times for information sharing, problem solving, and progressing with project completion.
5 key Challenges to engaging students using social media # Theme Challenge
1. Privacy There are risks of privacy violations.
2. Preexisting Culture Teachers need to learn how to step back and allow the social media to be learning driven.
3. New Methods of Old Behaviors Social media can be used to facilitate undesirable behaviors such as cyber-bullying and personal attacks.
4. Distraction Students may be distracted by affordances of technology which may detract from the learning objective and disrupt the class.
5. Equitable Access Access to the tools and training required for participation in technology related activities may be inequitable.
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