Category Archives: D: Social Media

Social Media Enhancements

  • What new learning outcomes could the use of social media help develop?

Social media in my experience, has been met with especially strong resistance by the school community. Social media tools are seemingly much more difficult to monitor and control than other types of technology such as internet searching. In order to maximize the benefits such as access to a globalized community (November & Mull, 2012), school boards will need to permit the usage of these technologies more quickly. Digital citizenship becomes highly important to ensure our students are communicating in appropriate ways and know how to handle a situation where other users may not be behaving appropriately.

That being said many new outcomes could be supported by the social media tools. Collaboration, critical thinking and creativity in general can be supported. The example in the November article of a teaching posing real world problems as she sees them in her day-to-day life and students responding in their out of school time (November & Mull, 2012) is essentially just-in-time homework. Data collection (Bates, 2014) is one area I had not previously considered. Using hashtags to group and sort information could be used in social studies, math and potentially science class. Group work linked in this same sorting style and viewed by all other students or perhaps the world, provides not only authentic reasons for completing the work, but also flexibility to group and regroup, and share information beyond your own group. Blogs can be used not only to document the learning items but also as a portfolio of the journey of learning. This type of platform can requires minimal technical knowledge but has the multimedia flexibility to afford many options for the student to express themselves.

  • Would it be better just to add social media to the course or to re-design it around social media?

While social media is a powerful communication and learning tool, I am not a supporter of building new courses to leverage the benefits. Like all technologies, social media tools are exactly that, tools. Re-designing course elements to take advantages of new ways of learning and demonstration of knowledge extends the strong learning avenues already established. Increasing collaboration and extending learning beyond the classroom, are two very beneficial elements to add to a course. Some social media supports asynchronous while others support synchronous communication. Both can be leveraged within a course to provide communication options that were not possible prior.

Social Media and Learning Environments

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

Thoughts on Social Media

This week’s topic of Social Media and Learning was especially interesting for me because of the two key points in the module:

  • The educational system acts to “isolate students within the walls of an educational model” is based on pre-industrial revolution world, despite the fact that knowledge accessibility and notions of authority have and are continuing to change.
  • “Trying to build stronger walls to keep the digital world and its information flows out is not going to work”.

Social media is a part of today’s world, and in order to educate individuals for today’s world Social Media must be integrated into teaching and learning practices. Bryan Alexander, describes a number of ways, from social book-marking, collaborative writing, to RSS feeds, blogging, and wiki projects. that social media is being used in education (2006). The article How Twitter can be Used as a Powerful Educational Tool, explores how Twitter can be used in education (2012). There is no shortage of the (Web 2.0) numerous apps, and social media tools that educators are able to, sometimes quite creatively, apply to their learning outcomes.

In this chapter, Bates (2014) poses the question about what new learning outcomes could the use of social media help develop? There are a number of outcomes which require special attention when it comes to the use of social media:

  • Digital literacy – Students need to know how to access, create using information communication technologies (ITCs) and the Internet.
  • Critical thinking – Students need to be able to critically assess the merits of online media. They need to be able to quickly “filter” through large amounts of information to determine what is most valuable to them.
  • Content creators – As content creators, and re-mixers students need to be aware of copyright practices, digital tattoos, and any privacy concerns.

Bates also asks whether it would it be better just to add social media to the course or to re-design it around social media (2014)? This question is not so straightforward, as the nature of the learning content factors into how social media can be incorporated as well as practical considerations. Considerations such as the lack of high bandwidth internet connections, and lack of digital literacy in the incorporation of social media in course design.  For example, it’s not reasonable to assign a video creation project for an online course, and then assess students in remote regions on the same criteria as students with more computer knowledge, experience and faster internet access.

As far as whether the course should incorporate social as an enhancement to the teaching, or whether the course should be designed around the use of Social Media really depends on the content and the course objects. In How Twitter can be Used as a Powerful Educational Tool, the geometry teacher was able use Twitter to engage students. The Khan Academy online videos can be used to better learn geometry. But these inclusions can replace traditional modes for teaching, where for example an instructor poses a question, or gives a lecture. A more extensive use of social media may work better for teaching a Communications or Political Science (Alexander, 2006) where much of the course assignments or learning can be in an online/social media environment where students can collaborate, share and re-mix existing information and media with more ease.

 Works Cited

Social Media in the Corporate Context

It has been my experience that social media use in a professional context is very different than an educational context. Professionally, social media is used to network and develop business relationships. It is often also used to market a company or forward a brand. Educationally, social media is used to encourage collaboration, build digital literacy, and aid in knowledge management (Bates, 2014). The challenge I see in Professional Development is balancing professional and educational uses of social media. By that I mean, our learners would not want their professional social media feeds littered with educational content, yet they would likely enjoy using social media in our professional development programs. Realistically, I think learners would have to develop separate social media accounts for educational purposes (i.e. separate from their personal accounts/business accounts). We also have a social media policy which dictates what we are allowed to publically share and post related to the firm – making social media use a bit more complicated.

All that aside, I think social media would be a great tool to encourage learning and collaboration outside the formal classroom setting. Discussion forums or Twitter hashtags could help us keep our learners engaged and continue the conversation after a program ends.  We are always encouraging our learners to take ownership of their professional development. I think incorporating social media would further this goal because learners would have to actively participate and drive course content. We have talked about creating an internally hosted learning blog. Perhaps we could encourage people to post on the blog as part of our live seminars (maybe even create our own tagging system).

I think social media integration must be considered when designing a program. You have to look at your program goals, content, and target audience and ask yourself, will this be beneficial? If the answer is yes, you should design the session with your social media strategy in mind. I don’t think that necessarily mean re-designing around social media but it must be thoughtfully incorporated – you cannot simply add it as an afterthought.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Pedagogical differences between media: Social media. In Teaching in digital age, Chapter 7. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-5-social-media/

Introverted Socializing

YouTube Preview Image

The [only] advantage of having 4 meetings this week is that I get to learn much from my esteemed colleagues. (I think I am the last to post on this).

Hopefully the posted link will work. It is to a YouTube that conveys the flux caused by the interface of information and people. Much of this is also paralleled in the Bates (2014) article in his delineation of the features that make social media distinct.

The question of what new learning outcomes could the use of social media help develop could be more accurately stated, how has social media helped to bring to the surface and satisfy the real learning outcomes of those who are learning?

The traditional educational structure of top down information transfer is currently most evidently foiled (foil here means opposite) in learning constructs “mediumed” in social media where end users are empowered to access and change information. Bates (2014) cites the use of the term democratizing, with regard to the use of information.

In light of this, the question of would it be better just to add social media to the course or to re-design it around social media, would depend on the intents and purposes of those after that information. If they are in a top down structure, it will depend on who is on the top. If they are co-creators of information, then the end result will be up to those contributing.

However, I believe the intent of the original questions were to induct the strengths/weaknesses of social media in an educational context to our thinking, especially to one we are currently in. In order to be pedagogically useful Bates calls for a “middle ground,” where clear educational philosophy grounds and guides social media implementation. In the current K-7, Canadian/BC elementary school context [here meaning the schools where I work] , students are “using” social media only in the form of “being educated about the potential dangers of using it and creating a digital tattoo.” Tragic that the implied focus is that learners are passive receivers as opposed to active participants.

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)

Esteves, J. (2016, 01, 18). Did You Know 2016 [YouTube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqZiIO0YI7Y

Social media in O&G?

I wasn’t entirely sure how to engage with this questions. The teaching I do is a little different. I don’t have a set class that I teach over a long period of time, at least not yet. My teaching comes in spurts. A lecture here, a small group session there, some bedside teaching, and in the operating room (OR). If I have to choose something that I do the most, it would be teaching in the OR. So, could I use social media to develop new learning outcomes in this setting? First thing I have to consider is the patient and issues surrounding confidentiality. And then I would need to consider the learning outcomes for my resident/fellow. The learning objective in the OR would be:

  • to understand the risks and pathophysiology that led to the condition for which we are operating
  • to understand the indications for this operation, as well as the alternatives
  • to understand the anatomy of the pelvis
  • to know the potential complications of this operation
  • to know the precautions needed to avoid potential complications
  • to know how to handle the complications should it arise
  • the steps of the operation and the reasons or function of the steps
  • routine postoperative care
  • any special considerations for the patient and their specific set of circumstances

I’m sure there’s more but I can’t think of them right now. So now the question is can social media help develop any of these learning outcomes? Are there any outcomes that would be better learned through social media than through the means we currently use (one on one teaching/Q&A)?

According to Bates, the affordances of social media are (2014):
  • connectivity and social rapport
  • collaborative information discovery and sharing
  • content creation
  • knowledge and information aggregation and content modification
Based on the above, I can think of a few areas that can be aided by social media, but not specific to the OR. The first is to gain patient perspective. There’s an interesting article I read that demonstrates a positive correlation between physician empathy and patient outcome; the greater the level of empathy, the better the patient outcome (Hojat et al., 2011). Based on these finding, building empathy by understanding the patient perspective is an important learning outcome, though I failed to mention it above. Social media is a great way to connect to people with similar conditions and gain their perspective. Unfortunately, time in clinic is short as are the moments leading up to an operation. These moments may not afford enough time to establish a rapport and gain their perspective. Time and place is not an issue for social media, making it advantageous in this instance.

Through connectivity, not only can you gain the patient perspectives but also communicate with experts in the field that were beyond our reach previously. Every residency program has a journal club where a paper from an academic journal is chosen, read, and critically appraised. I have heard of some places where they get the actual authors involved through Skype or twitter to ask them about the paper, clarifications, and justifications for their decisions during their research. This makes for greater, in-depth understanding of the paper, and a great learning experience. Webinars are another area that could be a useful learning tool for the resident. By participating, they have the opportunity to engage with experts beyond our institution.

But as Bates acknowledges, students need structured support (2011). I think my job as an educator is to facilitate these connections, and provide the residents with these opportunities, give them learning objectives, and set aside time for them to complete these objectives.

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/
  • Hojat, M., Louis, D. Z., Markham, F. W., Wender, R., Rabinowitz, C., Gonnella, J. S. (2011). Physicians’ empathy and clinical outcomes for diabetic patients.  Academic Medicine Journal, 86, 359-364.

learning outcomes & re-design

It is very interesting how teachers use twitter. Not only to engage with their students yet to engage with teachers and to learn form their peers. I follow a few #s that are very useful and they do live discussions. I recommend following them:

#aussieED #edchat #edtech #edchatnz #ukedchat #digitaledchat

Social media can extend the learning beyond the classroom time and space. It also allows learners to see how they can learn while using social media. Students learn from within their environment and today social media is the new environment. It is our responsibility to enrich it with enquiry driving students to seek knowledge from within this environment.

I would redesign the course around social media. The assessment will include social media (such as participation) and group discussions can be done on twitter under a specific # with a discussion facilitator to manage the questions flow. I would also post the accomplishment of the students on social media so they can share it and be proud of their work.

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/

Social Media: Hopes and Fears

It is one thing to help prepare students for active participation in the current society, quite another to prepare them for future society; as mentioned in Wesch’s video A vision of Students Today (2007), we are preparing students for jobs that might not yet exist. As such, we can no longer content ourselves by ignoring today’s technology and confining knowledge and learning uniquely within classrooms and books; we must open the student’s horizons and ensure that they, not only, have the tools to become life-long learners but that they also know how to use the tools that are currently ubiquitous in our society.

The idea that learners are creators and consumers of content (Mabrito & Medley, 2008), not just passive recipients, beckons the need for adopting a path away from the confines of the “traditional” classroom.   The incorporation of social media in classrooms can empower students (Bates, 2014) and allow them to interact in many manners with content, community and other students (Anderson, 2008a).  The incorporation of social media can help students explore the subject matter (in my case science) in a more up-to date manner.  They can see the relevance of what is being taught first hand, rendering the material covered more meaningful and memorable.  There is value in mimicking the changes that social media has had in the sciences (and other courses); research groups collaborate, experiments and databases are shared and the extraordinary is brought into everyone’s home through the internet (e.g. Chris Hadfield tweeting from space or the robotic advancement of Bostondynamics).  The greatest advantage that I can fathom from teaching with social media, if that it proves that science, and any subject taught therefore, is not confined to the classroom and dusty books, it is not boring and that the material covered has real life applications and implications.  It proves that science (and knowledge in general) is happening now, and that the students can and will pay an active role in its development.

In spite of this overwhelming push to integrate social media in the classroom, it is difficult to judge the affordances and opportunities of a technology that I personally, in spite of being part of the N-generation (Mabrito & Medley, 2008), have had little experience with by choice. I believe that like all technologies, the course should be re-designed to incorporate it properly.  To simply add it in my existing context might not truly open all the opportunities that this media can provide; to simply tack on social media might decrease its efficiency or relevance to the students.  Obviously the purposes educators hope to achieve with social media will determine the amount and depth of the necessary re-designing. Redesigning is important for we need to take the time to properly learn and assess the technology if we hope to properly integrate it in our classrooms and model it to our students (November & Mull, 2012).  We also need to consider re-designing the system to ensure that all stakeholders (administrators, students, parents, teachers, community) are on board with these changes (Mabrito & Medley, 2008).

Social media, as described in the articles, is described almost as the universal problem solver.  Yet these are affordances only. Social media can give voice to anyone, somewhat adding to the potential chaos that can be found on the net.  It is important to teach students how to decipher relevant and valid sources from the cries of the most boisterous.  I cannot help but feel saddened and worried that we, as a society, are so anxious for change, for the new, that we often forget the past. We forget what brought us to this point, forget what we truly need in order to learn, to grow and to expand our horizons.  I fear a world in which we believe that learning cannot occur without technology or is deemed of lower quality/lesser value if technology is not involved. I believe that there is still relevant knowledge that can be learned without technology, and that technology, although having great potential, is not the only answer.

 

References:

 

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. Theory and practice of online learning, 2, 15-44.

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Open Textbook.

Mabrito, M., & Medley, R. (2008). Why Professor Johnny can’t read: Understanding the Net Generation’s texts. Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 4(6), 2.

November, A., & Mull, B. (2012). How Twitter can be used as a powerful educational tool.  Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/how-twitter-can-be-used-as-a-powerful-educational-tool/

Wesch, M. (Producer). (2007). A Vision of Students Today. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Social Media in a Classroom

Bates (2014) states that social media’s main focus is to allow users to share and create information in a friendly open environment. I completely agree with his statement. Although I am an avid user and believer in using technology in my classroom, I have to admit that I am not using social media as a learning tool as much as I would like to. The article by November (2012) really opened up my eyes. Other than using Facebook, I was reluctant in signing up for another social media site. I thought to myself, “Do I want to have another way of occupying or wasting my time?” Well, after learning at the beginning of this course briefly that Twitter could have an advantage in engaging my students in the classroom, I said, “Well it won’t hurt to try.” I’m glad I did because Twitter is not just another waste of time, but actually a powerful learning tool that my kids would love to engage in.

Like Candy (1991) mentioned, many students come to class not as independent learners, but need support in learning how to use a certain tool (as cited in Bates, 2014). This is one task that us teachers need to be aware of. Even though many students have their own cellphone or iPad, they don’t necessarily have the skills to learn how Twitter can be used in an educational setting. When I try using Twitter out this summer for my English 11 class, I will make sure I teach my students just that.

There are many learning outcomes that social media can help develop in students. Bates (2014) said it best:

  • “digital literacy
  • independent and self-directed learning
  • collaborative learning
  • development of global citizens
  • networking and other inter-personal skills
  • knowledge management
  • decision-making”

All of these learning outcomes, according to the MYP IB curriculum that I use, will help develop the necessary skills for students in a global context. Many teachers use the curriculum handed to them to only teach certain concepts, but rarely the skills and ideas that students can use in everyday life.

The following poses an excellent question, “Would it be better just to add social media to the course or to re-design it around social media?” In my opinion, using social media is just another tool that educators can use in their classroom setting. I believe it would be better to add social media to a course, rather than re-design it around social media. I do not want to be restricted in my teaching practice to just use social media, as I like to incorporate different tools to engage my students.

 

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. Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/how-twitter-can-be-used-as-a-powerful-educational-tool/

Using Social Media to record learning

Every year in the Spring I take my Grade 12 Art students on a gallery trip to New York. We have an opportunity to visit MoMA, the MET, the Guggenheim and the Frick gallery (besides catching a baseball game and doing some shopping). A few years ago I encouraged students to take pictures while in the galleries and post them using a specific hashtag. This first step at incorporating social media was successful but without a few hiccups. Students needed to be reminded that a hashtag will link their photo to a larger conversation and as such they need to be aware of what they are posting. On the positive side, parents were able to see what their sons were doing while on the trip and to comment on their photos (Instagram was by far the most popular social media app used).

This year I have started to develop a social media assignment around our New York trip. The purpose is still to take photos of works of art in the galleries we visit, but I would like students to post and begin a digital conversation with other patrons about the art in the gallery and what their experiences and reactions to the pieces are. This is typical of many gallery shows that use a hashtag to start a trending conversation. I would like to emulate this at a student level.

As Bates notes, social media tools are ‘extremely useful for developing key skills in the digital age’ and as such should become part of the educational sphere. While teachers must teach caution and discretion when using social media as well as a separation between private and educational uses of social media, it does our students a disservice if we do not educate them about these platforms. Students need the structure and support of a classroom setting to learn skills to become independent learners, and the guidance from someone they can trust.

 

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)