Social Media in Education

Activity 7: Social Media in Learning and Teaching

I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘C’… Connections!

Retrieved from: https://leonardosapprentice.files.
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A misconception or misunderstanding is that teachers simply use technology to keep up with the trend. However this is not the case. Educators recognise the value of prior knowledge and how connections are vital in creating new knowledge and learning. To ignore and separate technology from education means to disconnect learning with their real world. Technology enables us to make wider connections through social networking platforms. It’s not the use of technology that makes a 21^st century classroom; it’s using technology as a vehicle to drive student learning through wider connections.

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As a teacher, I use social media to enhance my professional development outside the classroom. For example, I am part of two different groups on Facebook, NZ Teachers (Primary) and BEd Primary Class of 2013, where I communicate and share ideas with teachers around New Zealand and with my fellow graduate teachers. Content ranges from activity ideas to current educational issues and trends that shape our profession. This connection allows me to connect with teachers in different contexts and therefore make new knowledge and build existing ones to strengthen my practice. Another social platform I often use is Pinterest where I find and connect with amazing creative ideas other teachers have to share. Youtube is another significant social media platform that enhances my professional practice through watching videos both in my own time and during educational gatherings, such as meetings, courses, lectures and more. There are many more social platforms I could share with you that enhance my professional practice, but the point is I use social media to connect with other educators to exchange ideas that shape my teaching in some positive way.

Some key features of social media that I identify as being beneficial to teaching and learning are the ability to share ideas and connect with others through communication. Among the many social media platforms that I use in my teaching and learning classroom, the two most beneficial ones are Youtube and blogging. Youtube is a bank of inspirational videos that are perfect for introducing topics, teaching new concepts and virtually has the potential to teach anything you want. Blogging allows students to share their learning with parents at home, friends and other students across the world. Not only can they share, it allows students to get inspired and communicate with other students to make connections with their lives and their world.

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However, everything has its challenges and ipads in classrooms can sound too good to be true. Along with all the benefits of technology come the challenges and obstacles as well. Technology in the classroom requires teachers to be aware of potential challenges when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities. Although schools do their best to put in place security systems to filter content that may not be appropriate to our learners, there are limitations to keep students safe online. To best equip students for the challenges they may come across, I spend the first term of the year inquiring into Digital Citizenship so that students are aware of the responsibilities, expectations, dangers and consequences of what they do online. But there are still the inevitable challenges that exist, such as easily getting side-tracked by irrelevant content that pop up on the sideline or the nasty comments they could possibly receive from thoughtless strangers. Then there are the technical challenges such as Internet connection, missing devices, inability to login etc., which one teacher cannot physically handle. Fortunately, we have a school technician on site who can help students with technical issues. Overall, I do believe that the benefits of using social platforms outweigh the challenges and therefore there are greater advantages from using social networking platforms in teaching and learning than to stop it all together. It comes down to training the students to be safe and responsible online, as they would offline.

Personally I feel that Youtube best supports engagement with my professional development as it allows me to use this tool for whatever purpose I need at any time (for both learning and teaching) unlike other platforms that have limited routines and purposes. It keeps me engaged as I am a visual learner and the same idea can be explained by different people differently to fit different learning styles.

Issues and Trends in Education

Activity 6: Issues and Trends

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We all agree that the world needs to change. We may point in different directions and identify different areas in need of change, but the commonality is that we want the world to change for the better. The fact is, change is constantly happening and faster than you think; almost too fast that we often feel like we’re chasing after it. We live in such a fast-paced society that we don’t realise how fast the world is changing until we actually stop and look back. We notice trends and results that can either be beneficial or cause problems, perhaps even both, despite our good intentions.

As I explored the changes in education, I noticed trends and problems that influence and shape my teaching practice.

Today I intend to discuss:

• The trends and issues of digital devices in classrooms
• The shift in focus from facts to skills.

1. The Trends and issues of digital devices in classrooms

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The awareness of digital citizenship continuously grows as technology changes the foundation of education. Integrating devices into student learning and encouragement of BYOD has become more common and normal. This digital trend is influencing New Zealand and international education, as well as my own practice. To address this trend, I have become a learner myself by undergoing a post-graduate course at The Mindlab, studying Digital and Collaboration in Learning, in hope to take digital learning to the next level. Teaching in a decile 9 BYOD School with a class of Year 6 students, all my students have access to the Internet at home with the majority of them owning a personal device. We also have 6 class laptops and 2 tablets supplied by the school for students to share, as well as a teacher computer. There is a new Future-Focused Learning Unit at school, as well as professional development opportunities with various companies (e.g. Microsoft, SKOOLBO, Matheletics, Mathsbuddy etc). Clearly, technology highly influences and shapes my practice in this 21^st century. Many of our class tasks are online, such as reading on Kiwikidsnews, math goal practice on Mathsbuddy, basic facts practice on SKOOLBO and sharing their learning on our class blog, just to name a few.

However my passion to manipulate and take advantage of such powerful tools means that I have also encountered some problems. Last year I really struggled to understand and practice the different levels devices can be used in a learning context, and I believe many educators may feel the same way. To address this problem, our syndicate team set goals using the SAMR Model (left) with the guidance of Emma Winder. Fortunately, the many development opportunities and my commitment to this goal (through my study) allowed my team and I to competently utilize technology into teaching and learning, from ‘Substitution’ to ‘Redefinition.

2. The shift in focus from facts to skills

Significant changes that are constantly happening in the world means we are probably preparing our students for jobs that don’t yet exist. I remember sitting in a very clean classroom 15 years ago copying out a picture of an eye-ball off the whiteboard into my very neat science book and carefully labeling the parts. And to this day I remember this lesson not because I remember what I learned about the eye (honestly I don’t), but because it felt out of context and is useless information to me. Today we would be able to find this with the click of a button. Mentioned in a video clip called Did You Know 2015 is that “the computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965” (3.50sec).

Now that we recognise what meaningful learning is- information that is relevant and helpful, there has been a shift in focus from passing down facts to teaching life-long skills. We know more about the brain now than ever before and that enlightens us to new information on how learning happens. This shift in education influences and shapes my practice of teaching. As a result, we are supported with updated professional development courses, such as with Nathan Mikaere-Wallis (brain expert), Jon Winder (boys writing) and Mark Treadwell (key competencies), just to name a few. So instead of facts, I teach research skills, inquiry skills, problem-solving skills, strategies and key competencies. New Zealand's education system may not be the best, but it is world-class (Ministry of Education, 2014).

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Reference:

Ministry of Education. 2014. The New Zealand Education System: An Overview. Retrieved from: http://www.fendalton.school.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/NZ-Education-System-Overview.pdf 

Being Connected

Activity 5: My Professional Connection Map

Created at and retrieved from: http://bubbl.us

“Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.” – Harriet Lerner

Connections

Being connected is clearly not a new topic for today’s people, especially with the endless possibilities our technology allows today. But there is more to connectedness than social networks.

Personal or professional, having connections is clearly important to growth and development. As a teacher, my professional connection is important as it provides opportunities for myself to grow and develop to benefit my classroom practice.

I have illustrated on the map above both my current and potential professional connections, with the blue bubbles representing the benefits and challenges for each connection and red bubbles to represent potential benefits and connections. For example, a major impact on my practice comes from my connection with the students I teach, who come with different backgrounds, cultures, needs and talents. With this connection, there is potential for students to be in their element and become the source of knowledge in their area of expertise in the classroom or across the school. I aim to put this into action by setting up regular student-run meetings. Furthermore, my connection from both the students and the community allows me to have professional connections with parents, who have the potential of learning opportunities with various areas of expertise.

Another connection includes the team of teachers in my syndicate whom I work closely with on a daily basis. This connection allows ideas, resources, support and expertise to be exchanged and have the potentials of team teaching and wider connections to schools and teachers to benefit and positively influence my teaching practice and pedagogy.

Interdisciplinary Environment- What is it and why use it?

Interdisciplinary, as explored by Mathison & Freeman (1997), refers to the approach where educators seek to “combine disciplines to enhance the learning in one or more of the disciplines” (p.11) to allow application in real life situations because knowledge is connected, not separate. This is recognised as an essential skills for success in the 21^st century.

Mathison & Freeman (1997) provides some justification for the practical use of interdisciplinary as providing opportunity to: (p. 24)

• Have more meaningful relations with students
• Teach cognitive skills associated with ‘real life’
• Motivate students
• Increase student achievement
• Promote positive attitudes toward subject matter
• Create more curricular flexibility
• Diminish scheduling problems
• Integrate new and rapidly changing information with increased time efficiency.

However I believe it is important to mention that Mathison & Freeman (1997) explain that although teachers have reported positive experiences with the interdisciplinary approach, there isn’t enough evidence to actually support this.

As teachers, we are constantly expected to make decisions on our feet and improvise because no experience is the same. Connectedness and interdisciplinary teaching is definitely a step towards the right direction, but it’s the teachers’ task to determine what is best for the students in different situations at different times.

Reference:

• https://bubbl.us
• Goodreads. (2015). https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/136386-only-through-our-connectedness-to-others-can-we-really-know
• Mathison, S. & Freeman, M. (1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from: http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf