Week 30: Social Media in Teaching and Professional Development

 “Social media make it possible to involve and draw on the experience of people around the world.” (Sharples et al., 2016)

Social Media in the Classroom

My use of social media varies from personal to professional use. I use Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram for personal use. This is mainly to keep up to date and communicate with friends and family who live all over the world. Professionally, I use Facebook, Twitter and the education app Seesaw in my classroom. These are used for professional development, sharing of resources and communicating with parents on classroom tasks, just to name a few.

The benefits to using social media in the classroom include giving the students the opportunity to engage in discussions and collaborate outside of the classroom walls. They feel empowered when others from outside their ‘communities’ take interest in what they are doing and learning. As Abe & Jordan (2013) state “The use of social media encourages students to interact with one another and may increase engagement and interest in the course content.”

The challenges we face with the use of social media in the classroom are teaching our students the difference between factual and false information. Giving the students the power to form their own opinions on issues rather than following that of others. Spending too much time communicating via a digital device and not maintaining conversational skills they may need in the future. Social media can also form a distraction for some students from other areas of academic needs. Teacher knowledge of specific social media is also a challenge. Altenbach (2016) talks about teaching being an evolving career and that responsibility lies with the teachers to make themselves more knowledgeable when it comes to technology and the strategies that come with it.

Social Media in Professional Development

The use of social media for professional development has developed throughout my Mindlab journey. As a ‘new’ teacher to the profession, it is often seen more beneficial to observe and watch those teachers around you to gain some insight and ideas around teaching pedagogy. However, throughout this course, I have found Twitter to be an awesome place of learning especially making connections with Edutopia and Mindshift. These twitter accounts post education-related articles etc. regularly and although they are short reads, you gain valuable information about teaching practice from them.

The challenges that have arisen from the use of social media is the time taken engaging in twitter feeds. As stated above it can become a form of distraction to areas of the profession that value your time more. Although it is learning, it is extremely important to manage the time spent reading and engaging in social media.

Social media has a place in the New Zealand education however, it is important to keep a balance between digital and physical.

References

Abe, P. & Jordan, N. A. (2013). Integrating Social Media Into the Classroom Curriculum. About Campus, 18: 16–20.

Altenbach, C. (2016). Social Media in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1665&context=ehd_theses

Sharples, M., de Roock, R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Looi, C-K, McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., Wong, L. H. (2016). Innovating Pedagogy 2016: Open University Innovation Report 5. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved from http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf