Bates (2014) emphasizes that students need structured support and selected content when engaging with social media. Students require structured educational experiences in order to provide support in developing skills in knowledge management and the responsible use of social media. One of Bates’ concepts that resonated with me was the statement that “students look for structure and guidance in their learning, and it is the responsibility of teachers to provide it” (2014). It seems to be so simply stated, and yet I feel that the need for structure and guidance sometimes gets overlooked when engaging students with new technology and media tools. New learning outcomes centered around knowledge and skills for developing responsible and effective use of social media should be an essential component of the classroom learning environment. As students are taught the skills to become independent learners, new opportunities emerge to engage students in authentic, collaborative learning environments.
By connecting students to real world problems through the use of social media, teachers such as Mrs. Caviness, as described by November (2012), expand teaching and learning beyond the confines of the physical classroom environment. Within the context of social media, ideas around the Blended and Flipped classroom models have been discussed within our school board for the past few years, but as of yet, these models seem to exist more as ideas rather than reality in classrooms. However, several colleagues at schools I have taught at use different aspects of each model to a certain degree, but resist using the “blended” or “flipped” label as applied to their classroom practice. Within these classrooms, the integration of digital access and content with face-to-face learning has come to shape the learning environment, and the students are motivated and engaged by the learner focused activities that are afforded to them through a flipped or blended model.
Considering the organization and structure of the Khan Academy, I’ve found the ideas of Salman Khan to be interesting in that blended and/or flipped learning environments are a means to “liberate” classrooms from the constraints of traditional learning models and text based or memorized content. I liked this idea, especially in terms of how both teachers and students can benefit from more active classroom learning as a result, and opportunities exist for linking social media with these learning models. Salman Khan describes this as being a means to take lectures “off the table,” thus liberating students and teachers to have more meaningful, engaging conversations and interactions during their time together in the physical classroom. Through the integration of social media, content may be accessed at home at any time, and students are then able to return to the classroom equipped with the key questions and considerations already in place to help move their learning and engagement forward. In this manner, teachers become role models in the effective integration of classroom learning, and students follow their teacher’s lead in engaging with content and learning in active, authentic ways.
One consideration to bear in mind, in accordance with Bates’ SECTION framework (2014), requires that the realities of student access to technology are an essential component of planning and designing learning tasks for social media integration. As November (2014) states, “unfortunately, many students do not see the educational value of a tool they might be using every day.” As educators, we must also appreciate the fact that daily interactions with technology outside of the school context will vary greatly from student to student.
Video retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/salman-khan-academy-flipped-classroom-video
References
- Bates, T. (2014). Pedagogical differences between media: Social media. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-5-social-media/ (Chapter 7, point 6)
- November, A. (2012). How Twitter can be used as a powerful educational tool. November Learning [Weblog] Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/how-twitter-can-be-used-as-a-powerful-educational-tool/