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 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. |