Category Archives: Class Discussion

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)

I really have to think about this week’s questions because social media is something that I use, but I have only rarely used it for educational purposes.

I feel torn because on one hand, many of the professionals (docs, dentists, nurses, etc.) who take our courses are my age or older, which means that they were educated and started practicing their professions long before social media existed. On the other hand, there is a real need to address the learning  needs of those professionals who use social media daily. I am not sure how to strike a balance.

I certainly can’t imagine designing an entire course around social media, because we would never get our participants who prefer more traditional learning methods to buy in. However, I love the idea of using social media within traditional learning settings, such as a lecture, to encourage more active participation. Most people who attend our courses, bring a cell phone or tablet with them, so I do wish to explore ways to use technology to make the learning event more interactive.

Bates (2014) mentions that one of the general affordances of social media is “collaborative information discovery and sharing” (p. 3). I would love to set up a Twitter feed for a live lecture-type course and encourage participants to post their questions there or share relevant links or information there. My hope is that participants might seek out that page after the educational event to revisit some of the links mentioned. Another option would be to have small group discussions within a larger lecture and then have a member from each group post their most salient take-away message to that Twitter feed.

I haven’t mastered the hashtag yet. So my preference would be to set up a Twitter account for our events. However, it would also be interesting to suggest a few hashtags that learners may wish to check out during the lecture and then recommend that they re-tweet any pertinent information to our group’s account. It could be a very interesting way to get small-group discussions going.

I guess my point is, that participants are already surfing the Net during our lecture programs, so we might as well encourage them to do so on course-related sites and/or with others taking the course along with them.

Reference

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/

I think incorporating social media can help students in their ability to critically analyze content. They can learn to compare and contrast opinions to their course content. By comparing new social media perspectives they can learn to construct knowledge and rationalize their own point of views. Social media can broaden students perspectives and learn to formulate respectful arguments in an online environment. The statement made by Keen “we are replacing the tyranny of experts with the tyranny of idiots. Not all information is equal, nor are all opinions” is quite extreme (Bates 2014). Experts may have very theoretical views and opinions that do not hold in the ‘real world’ when it comes to practicality.

Just adding social media to existing courses would be sufficient because information is being updated more rapidly and students need to learn how to analyze current information to construct their own understanding. There is no need to re-design entire course; social media is only one avenue of learning and the foundation should still be based on sound pedagogy. I think it also depends on the course that is being taught. Certain subjects may be more effective to use social media but if it is incorporated into a course then students should always have choice and options so they can gravitate towards areas of interests to them to maintain engagement. For example, for math classes student should have the freedom to choose an area of interests in their lives that applies math concepts and break down the problem versus everyone solving the same problem. Re-designing the entire course around social media would considerably throw off the sought after balance of finding the “middle ground between the total authority and control of the teacher” (Bates 2014). Students still need the structure to optimize their learning.

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

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/

In British Columbia right now they are updating the curriculum (the Yukon uses BC curriculum). I took the the to peruse the new document and uncovered some interesting things pertaining to the topic of this discussion. They mention the “increasing importance of digital media in communicating and exchanging ideas”. This is written in the curriculum document and clearly supports bringing these new technologies into the classroom. They even suggest a module titled “Digital Communication: blogging/writing for the web/ writing for social media/gaming/podcasting”. I thought that the MET program would be very happy to hear of these changes! The explicit mention of technologies in a curriculum is a positive move in the right direction. The problems of stagnating educational practices at the tertiary level, shown in Wesch’s video, are not indicative of the situation everywhere. I think that universities are slower to react to change than grade schools because of the institution itself, though I found the education department at UBC to be quite embracing of new technologies and methodologies when I was there, which was quite inspiring.

In the past I’ve had students connect online using media to favorite authors and occasionally students from other schools. I ran up to problems sometimes regarding culture (with female Arab students in the UAE) but for the most part my experiments were well received. I think adding social media to classes is ideal way to introduce new media. To redesign a course around social media might work better but would be putting too much at stake. In addition administrators might not be as accepting to such a change. By bringing it into a developed course it could be used to add to the course and could slowly be brought in more each year. From my current position it is hard to do work with social media as it is blocked on our server and any work with it must be done at home or on wireless networks but I think that if I went to the technology department with a solid proposal, they would probably let me attempt it on a trial basis.

It will be hard to shift the focus from social media as a distractor to it being an important part of education. The lack of control might seem daunting to some. However, the new curriculum states that “digital literacy is an essential component of an educated citizen” and with continued understanding of the importance behind its inclusion, progress will continue to be made!
“English Language Arts.” Building Student Success – BC’s New Curriculum. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.

In the course that I taught, I could see using social media for distance collaboration on video projects. It would be very interesting to allow a student to create visual art with other people around the globe. The activity would also allow them the opportunity to experience the segmentation effects of production environments where you have to hand off assets for others to work on. That sort of collaborative experience is very much in line with how businesses work these days with offices all over the world and contributing to projects without being in the same physical space with your peers.
I think that social media is just another tool in the learning toolbox, so I personally don’t see the need to re-design a course around it. Adjusting activities and modifying current learning modules to use these communication tools doesn’t seem as invasive as a complete re-build of a course. Although I see it as just another medium which perhaps isn’t to other teachers who are more invested in social media in their daily lives.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I consume a lot of information gleaned from social media, but I don’t create very much social media content…anymore. My relationship with socia media began in grade 9. I was moving from a feeder school to a large middle school and was nervous. My family had just purchased our first computer and we even had dial-up Internet, so I decided I would search my middle school’s name and see what I could find. I managed to stumble on a LiveJournal maintained by a former student and I was hooked! So, I started my LiveJournal and blogged about everything: from my mundane life to my “philosophical” musings on life as a teenager, and so did most of my friend circle. I did this almost every day from grade 9 until my first year of university. By then, Facebook was just coming out, so I joined Facebook and left LiveJournal behind. A year later, I decided to delete my LiveJournal and purge my account, but I wanted one last look–and what I read was horrifying–I was just another whiney teenager complaining about everything! I couldn’t delete my LiveJournal fast enough–what if someone outside my circle of friends found it? I’m sharing this story with all of you because this is when I started being concerned about my digital footprint (although I didn’t have terminology for it at the time). Now I hardly ever post on social media (when I do I think first, then post) and my privacy restrictions are set to the max because I don’t want to have something I post come back to haunt me. However, I now realize that, although my teenage angst-filled blog posts were cringeworthy, using LiveJournal was what pushed me to learn html. LiveJournal helped my friends and I develop a strong connection because it was a platform for us to work out feelings, tough situations without the awkwardness of face-to-face interactions when emotions ran high. I also learned some difficult and some wonderful lessons about Internet communities and Internet safety. For example, my LiveJournal was once hacked because of my own stupidity. So, I’m going to keep this in mind when I respond to Bates’ (2014) questions regarding using social media in one of my courses, because my immediate reaction to this topic was, initially, a firm NO! to social media in the classroom.

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

We all know my struggles with Internet and censorship in China, and social media is no exception–it’s monitored and there are always reports of social media users being detained for various reasons. But, for the purpose of this response, I’m going to assume that my students use of social media would be responsible and administrative detention would not follow. 🙂

The area where I see social media assisting with learning outcomes is collaboration. The November (2012) reading gave many examples of how Twitter and the use of hashtags can bring like-minded people together–whether that be for a protest, or to collaborate on a classroom project. While we can not use Twitter at my school, we could use things like Weibo (micro-blogging platform) or WeChat (an extremely popular chat app).  I do feel that my students are quite isolated at my school–they rarely have the opportunity to interact with other schools (and we have an international school sharing our campus–try to figure that out). If we used social media to forge learning connections,  the students would gain more than collaborative opportunities; the connections afforded by social media would also increase students’ exposure to digital citizenship, reading, writing, multi-media creation–the list is endless. So, how Bates (2014) indicates a range of benefits from social media use, and just like how LiveJournal exposed me to skills and opportunities outside of posting blog entries, social media could definitely do the same for my students–if managed well.

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

In my opinion, I think the best approach is to re-design a course around social media rather than just add social media. When I think of adding social media to courses at my school, my immediate concerns are: consent, acceptable use policies, and control of information. In order to use social media, first and foremost we require consent. I believe most social media accounts can be created without parental consent by the age of 13. However, I think we need to educate students about consent and understanding what they are agreeing to when they click “I Agree” at the end of terms of use agreements they (we all?) rarely read to the end. This is part and parcel of acceptable use, but when used in a school there is the addition of acceptable use under the school’s guidelines and policies. If we don’t consider these responsibilities before adding social media to a course, we run the risk of getting dinged when something goes wrong.

Additionally, control of information is a huge concern and not just because of censorship concerns. Bates’ (2014) briefly touches on the issue of quality information, and I know it’s naive to think students don’t access questionable content on their own, but they will be exposed to a lot of content, social media users, and ideas that, within the confines of a traditional classroom, they would not normally be exposed to. It is our responsibility to prepare them for that. For instance, I recently engaged in a terse debate via Twitter about the merits/uselessness of code.org block coding activities. I made my point and tried to be respectful and professional, but at the end of the interaction I felt about 2 inches tall. I worried that maybe I was wrong and that I had made a terrible decision that would hurt my students, but in a few days, the feeling passed as I remembered that everyone is entitled to their opinion. I also acknowledged that this type of debate can help you see a different point of view that your normally wouldn’t consider. Now, if this had happened to a student using social media in my class and I hadn’t prepared them with strategies for responding to and coping with this type of situation (which seems inevitable on the Internet) how would that have affected their confidence?

It’s undeniable that students are using social media outside of school. Yes, they probably use social media more often, and with more skill than I do. However, social media in an educational context is a lot different than purely social contexts. So, let’s redesign our courses to prepare students to use social media as LEARNERS and not just users.

References

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

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/

I teach Grade 2 at an IB Primary Years Programme International School. The IB asks teachers and the school to promote and teach international mindedness. I think that international mindedness is a nice compliment to the power of social media.

Due to time and cost restrictions, students are not able to physically engage with the global community. Except occasionally through international trips, exchanges and the like, though these are only available to a certain section of the schooling population, students most often interact with their school and local community. Further, age is an important factor in being able to experience places beyond the local community. Young primary age students only use local areas to take day field trips.

Before the internet, teachers could bring the ‘world’ into the classroom via current events on TV or in a newspaper, guest speakers could visit the school and students could ‘see’ the world in literature and movies.

The internet, first, provided a one-way ‘on demand’ access to pictures, multimedia and information for students to explore. Social media has revolutionized the internet to provide two-way communication between the classroom and the global community. Learning outcomes could be developed via social media to have students contact, engage with and establish relationships globally.

There are many ways that teachers are already reaching out to the global community. As November (2012) emphasizes Twitter is a great way for teachers and their students to connect with people in real time especially when important events happen. Another example is Pernille Ripp’s Global Read Aloud, an opportunity for students to create a type of global literature circle.

I think that Bates (2014) second question depends on how much technology a teacher is comfortable with. Initially, I think having a teacher participate in something like the Global Read Aloud is far less intimidating then asking them to redesign their course/ class around social media. However, I think that many teachers would be up to the task on this. I know that I certainly would!

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-

I’m going to play Devil’s advocate for a bit here, because while I believe social media offer enormous opportunities for students to learn how to respectfully communicate with teachers, parents, one another, experts in various fields, and the public at large, I also strongly believe that kids and grownups alike need spaces (and simply because of societal shifts, these spaces are increasingly online) where they’re not working, not thinking too hard, and not feeling like they’re being analysed and evaluated. Dean Shareski (@shareski) a Community Manager for Discovery Education Canada, said the same thing in his talk at the TDSB Google Camp I attended a couple of weeks ago, that initially, he used Twitter because it was fun, and when we use social media with kids, it should be for fun as well.

I have very big concerns about using social media in the classroom, mostly because, while I’d say I have about 100 times more self-discipline than my average student (aged 8 to 12), I cannot possibly hope to open Facebook and stay on task. It’s like asking a kid to go to a candy store for some miso soup. Even if you love miso soup, when you see it beside a lot of candy, it won’t seem that appealing. The same can be said for trying to integrate work into social media. If one of you were my Facebook friend and posted a great article about Learning with social media, and it comes up right between Rihanna and Drake’s new video (shot on my street, btw…) and John Oliver making fun of Trump, it won’t have the same drawing power as it does in another context. Niether Bates (2014) nor November (2012) acknowledge the possibility of social media being distracting.

For social media to work in a classroom setting, it must be established and maintained for the classroom setting alone. That means, if a student posts “why did you slide tackle me at recess?” to another student on the class Twitter page, the teacher needs to have a word with the student to maintain professional parameters. So rather than redesign a course around social media, I think the social media needs to redesigned around the particular group of students and the subject matter it’s being used for. And most importantly, educational and non-educational social media need to stay separate, even if some of the fun Shareski advocates can be injected into the educational social media.