Blog Post Week 5 - Social Media in the Classroom
Today in #I4Ed we had a very interesting speaker, Kirsten
Thompson, talk to us about using social media in the classroom. A few key areas she focused on were as follows:
Why Use Social Media
in the Classroom?
According to Kirsten, everyone (no matter the grade
and subject area) should be using social media in the classrooms.
Regardless of the platform or context, social media can be used
to address the 4 Cs of technology:
-
Communication
-
Collaboration
-
Curation
-
Creativity
What value does it bring to classroom? 1. Prevalence
o
Prevalence of social media usage- 25 million Canadians are using social media.
2. Digital Literacy
o
Best way to understand and model digital literacy
is to get involved online.
o
Help meet digital literacy outcomes in the LwICT framework.
3. Relevance o Preparing students to use social media
Popular platforms and a few ways to use them in the classroom
- YouTube - trigger interesting discussion, access instructional videos, poetry read by the poet, documentaries, engage visual learners, students research a topic and create their own video, introduce a new topic, demonstrate science experiments, writing prompt.
- Facebook - Facebook group for class, Facebook polls, share education content such as videos or articles, create profiles for characters, post events, make global connections.
- Instagram - student of the week, students create pretend posts from historical figures, I spy - have students post a photo of their choice, then choose someone else's photo for a creative writing assignment.
- Twitter - get feedback from students, get students to summarize what they've learned, tweet as a historic figure, hashtag for your class.
- Snapchat - send out reminders, students can respond to question via a short video.
Good questions to ask yourself when deciding on a social media platform for a specific task:
·
Why am I using this?
o
4 Cs
o
New or more fulfilled education opportunity
o
Make your life easier
·
Ask yourself what will the students learn
through this platform?
o
The 4Cs
o
Content based outcomes
o
Technology competencies
·
What value is added by including the use of this
tool?
o
Is this tool moving beyond what could be
achieved within the building on pencil and paper?
o
Does the tool allow students to create and
share?
o
Does it allow them to access info not available
in school?
·
How does pedagogy need to change in order to
effectively incorporate this tool?
o
Something will have to change!
o
Power shift
o
Free up more time for 1-on-1
·
Is the time spent incorporating this tool worth
it?
o
You, students, lesson-use
o
Related back to value
o
Think long term (open vs closed ended)
·
Do I know how to use this tool? Do my students?
o
Learn together
o
Be responsible/accountable
·
Who will benefit from the use of this tool?
o
Teacher vs students
o
Which students will not benefit
o
Account for differentiation
Other good tips!
- Before students start in your class, send home a notice to prepare parents that the students will be using social media in classroom.
- Know the schools policies regarding students photos and work being shared on social media.
- Keep your school accounts open, you and the students don’t have to follow each other. Therefore, the teacher does not see what students are posting on their personal accounts – Important to no cross this Boundary!!
- On your personal social media accounts don’t allow anyone to follow (parents, students, colleagues). Keep these accounts on lockdown!
~Miss C.
Hello thanks for the great post. There is so much information that you have stated on the presentation of notes that I had missed, thanks so much. I enjoyed the portion of the post on where you stated the social media platform and the ways that these can be used in the classroom. I do agree that students need to be educated on how to use social media responsibly through digital literacy. Thanks for the great tips throughout the post. Have a nice evening.
ReplyDeleteFantastic points Courtney! You have provided a lot of great information from the presentation as well as your own take. I really like how you gave examples of how to use the social media platforms within our own classrooms. You've provided a lot of thought and consideration for teachers and why social media would be beneficial to use with their students and parents! I agree with many of your points and that we should embrace the technology. I as well can't wait to try these tools in my own classroom and learn with my students. Great job girl!
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