Activity 7 - Social media in learning and teaching and professional development

Create a blog post where you discuss your views on social media use in learning and teaching and in professional development. The following provocations can be used for your thoughts:

Provocations

• How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional development?
• What are some key features of social media that you have identified as beneficial for teaching and learning?
• What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities?
• What social media platform do you feel best supports engagement with your professional development? Why?

Bexheti et al (2014) discuss the idea that social media is becoming the most important tool for interaction among people, where everybody can share, exchange, comment, discuss and create information and knowledge in a collaborative way. In education it allows us to share ideas and good practice on a global perspective. Whilst I am not the most active user of social media, I do not use social media much for personal use, there are some forms that I have used for a number of years for professional learning purposes.

I have been an avid twitter user for a number of years and feel this best supports my own professional development. Following educators such as Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher), edutopia and Shelly Sanchez (@ShellTerrell) allows me to keep up to date with the latest trends and innovations.   I also follow sites such as @Office, @Onenote and @Google to keep up with the latest developments in these companies. It has allowed me to pick up new software such as Sway. In addition I have been able to garner a range of useful tips on how to use the software from both Google and Microsoft.

Other social media that I have used include:

•          Pinterest for ideas, amongst ideas there are a number of posters that can be added to enhance the classroom.
•         An increasing use of Office 365 to comment on student work and as a collaboration tool within the class.
•         Youtube and TedEd for educational videos and as a tool for tuning in to new ideas.

There are an increasing number of social media sites aimed at supporting professional learning in te reo and tikanga Māori language and culture.  Increasing your use of te reo Maori (Te Reo Blog) along with a Facebook page promoting Māori Language week (Language Week Facebook page).

I have used both of these for ideas to include in my teaching of te reo. It is an area that I know I need to work on. Being able to see what others are doing, checking out the links to resources that they have found helpful and adapting for use in my own class will hopefully develop my skills.

I have at times followed blogs, however these seem to be intermittent, whereas with Twitter I have continued to follow certain  people and have used their thoughts and ideas to change my own teaching practice.

Key Features of social media that benefit my teaching.

There are many features of social media that can be beneficial, and they are on a number of different levels.

At the class level there is:

•         Blogging allows sharing student work easily available to parents.
•         Increased collaboration using tools like Office 365 or Google.
•         School Facebook and Twitter accounts allow easier communication to whanau.
•         Students have the ability to connect globally.

As a teacher one of the key features of social media is the sharing of ideas, teachers are notorious for working individually,  the relationships they have are within the class, or within the school and local community. If these communities are not outward thinking then the environment can become stale and new concepts not investigated.  The beauty of social media is the ability to follow progressive thinkers who are pushing the boundaries of education, to use some of their ideas to improve the learning. 

There is also a potential downside from social media in the class:

•       Access to inappropriate material, from Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook etc.
•        Information overload, being swamped can mean nothing gets done.
•       Technology fails.
•        Inappropriate use of social media, used for bullying and negative interactions.

As a teacher there is also the downside where you can get swept along with changes that do not work as well as you hoped. Perhaps we need to treat social media in the same way as salespeople. Read, take time to think and research, then act.

References

Bexheti, L.A., Ismaili, B.E., Cico, B.H. (2014). An analysis of social media usage in teaching and learning: The case of SEEU. In Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Circuits, Systems, Signal Processing, Communications and Computers, Venice, Italy, 2014. ISBN 978-1-61804-22