Social media is far more than Facebook. You don’t have to look deeper than Pinterest and Evernote to see valuable potential for the classroom environment. Every classroom is inherently a social space, so Social Media in the Classroom is an inevitable and substantial part of the future of education.
Opportunity Statement
The breadth & penetration of social media into every individual’s life has made it essential to multiple frontiers of informal learning; the evolution to formal learning has begun.
Prediction Source(s)
Online Colleges – Tech Trends for 2013
Educause – 7 Things About Social Content Curation
Social Media is the frontier that students are proudly exploring and teachers are tentatively dipping their toes in. This is an area of interest to me.
Social Media is an area of creative and expressive freedom, something that has been traditionally shunned within the confines of a classroom. Social Media is a society, and like any society it requires boundaries and restrictions (policing) to go along with the benefits and potential meaningful productivity. How as teachers do we promote the educational benefits of social media, but keep the vehicle on the road when social media is “salt flat” of possible directions?
I think you’ve pointed out one of the issues that teachers encounter with Wikipedia. The collaborative nature of that and other social learning/social media platforms might promote active learning, but are they learning information that is accurate?
Re. Wikipedia accuracy. Some interesting findings…
http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1413/1331%26gt
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It looks like the social media topic is growing a potential team for an emerging markets analysis.
Social Media can both hinder or progress the education process. It depends on how it is used, whether it is used as a mere gimmick, and if students are receptive. With many of the current social medias out there currently (namely FaceBook) teachers are often told to stay off of it, and to not have contact with students by their union. So do we need a social media that is safe for all members? Can we not use social media to learn from one another, and have it be a beneficial part of the educational experience?
Dani – I think you might be on to something for assignment 3!
I hope so, because I think there is so much potential for social media in the classroom, but with the pressure from the union to stay off, it makes me nervous. Plus it has to be something the students see as part of the learning process, and not a place to post selfies.
I work in healthcare, directly teaching patients in the roughly 25-40 year old age group. My clients are pregnant and prepregnant women. They are all over social media. I very much wish there was a way for me to interact with them via FaceBook etc. Due to confidentiality reasons, I do not see the provision of healthcare going in this direction, and thus we are missing the boat 🙁
I’m a big believer in not re-inventing the wheel. Existing social media networks can provide an established infrastructure for our possible use. There are many security/privacy/etc concerns being raised as they evolve, but as we work through them, I hope we can make use of them positively for education.
I agree my school has also been delving into Social Media tools to keep students/parents/staff connected and informed. We have used Facebook and Edmodo, I agree Lee, why invent the wheel when somewhere out there, there is something we can use. There must be a way to make Social Media safe and secure for all to use.
Privacy is a concern in education as well. As soon as we open up the Internet to school aged students privacy and confidentiality is questioned. Aren’t there ways around it? Just because we hit a wall doesn’t mean that we can’t meander around it. Pseudonyms, privacy settings, signed consent…
I found it interesting that the experts rated the articles more credible then non-experts. I really think this proves that the perception that wikipedia isn’t as credible as other peer-reviewed sources is now just a myth.
I always encourage my students to include wikipedia in their searches. But put the caveat in place that they should always go the references at the bottom of the article. If someone has already done the research on the topic you are looking into, why not take advantage of that.
I take a very pragmatic approach to my use of social media tools, and I’m a huge Twitter user. I don’t use it a lot for teaching and learning as yet. I use it as professional development network tool.
I find Twitter to be a wonderful resource for research, and to keep abreast of developments and activities of colleagues and scholars worldwide. The daily stream, coming across my desk contains nuggets of gold. The trick is in building a list of Twitter users to follow who can enrich your areas of interest.
Anyone else using Twitter in this manner who has some tips on use?
It really is an amazing research tool. Using apps like Flipboard allows me to take it one step further and favourite what I like or find new people to follow based upon different categories I read.
As for integration of it in different platforms. it depends upon the intended purpose. I am on a board back home for a Pay it Forward Saint John. We started late in 2012, but with a few selected hashtags and a strategy in place we quickly garnered a lot of attention in our city. I absolutely love this topic and have a few posts on my blog about twitter, and how to carefully integrate it in schools. As a technology mentor last year I even created and held an online Lync broadcast on the topic. The one thing I would add to my presentation now is to be wary of the “creepy treehouse” effect. Depending on the use, the audience and the project, it is important students don’t feel a loss of privacy.
I have attached links to my blogs, the prezi I made for a specific school that took the twitter challenge on last year, as well as my Lync broadcast. I’d love to get some feedback on it!
http://www.philsweezey.com/2012/12/09/why-we-should-be-wary-of-twitter/
http://www.philsweezey.com/2012/10/15/reaching-new-frontiers-with-twitter/
http://prezi.com/offbyul_vhyb/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NQQ8zn7p3E
You can follow me at @psweeze
Saw this on Twitter this morning from a former ETEC student in Alberta…
It’s social media on steroids. 18 YouTube videos on how to use Twitter for teaching and learning.
http://elearningindustry.com/18-youtube-videos-on-how-educators-can-use-twitter-in-education
I have been told that in the past as well. There are some solutions online though. Social media platforms are being adapted for private educational use. I used a website called Twiduate last year. It was a private micro-blogging website. I taught Islamic girls so I had to be very careful of how I used the internet. This worked okay but I wish there was a way to communicate with students in other school. Or that had a filter to specify female student. Interesting thoughts.