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The Sometimes Social Social Media

As someone who is fairly comfortable with social media in my personal life it has been interesting to see how in teaching I tend to avoid anything to do with social media. Experiencing pile-ons and other not so positive side effects of this 21st Century aspect of life has made me cautious within the classroom as to how social media is used.

The students in our MLE class are 1:1 with devices, however social media is not something we use within the class apart from them being able to respond to one another on Google Classroom. There are the obvious benefits of this online interaction in terms of students being able to interact with one another, and collaborate in an easy way however I have also been concerned about the potential issues in terms of students wasting time, and potentially interacting with others in a disrespectful way (as adults often do on social media). This concern was also shared by participants who were surveyed by Seaman and Tinti-Kane (2013) and who were critical about students using social media for learning. 

Using social media platforms in class has a great potential to enhance learning, and I believe that the potential issues that can arise are also excellent opportunities to teach students how to be decent online citizens before they are old enough to be using much social media in their personal lives. Despite my own personal reservations I have seen how social media can be used effectively with creating relationships with other classrooms overseas (e.g. via skype) or being able to have direct contact with role models and creatives such as authors, celebrities or politicians. This ability to have some control over the platforms being used and who the children interact with means we have a chance to show students the power of social media in creating relationships with others and having the chance to contact those who traditionally would have been difficult to contact. 

Personally for my own development as a teacher, social media provides a valuable tool in multiple ways. Firstly, on twitter I am able to be a part of fortnightly chats where teachers across the nation discuss various topics such as cultural competency. This chance to hear from others who might be working in quite a different environment to myself is useful, and also gives me a chance to think about my own strategies and opinions. As well as these twitter based chats, I love being a part of the NZ teachers Facebook page (as well as various other Facebook pages to do with teaching). Through these I get constant updates around events, resources, project ideas, behaviour management techniques and more. The positives of social media for myself and being exposed to other teaching professionals far out way the negatives, and this is the same situation that I would like to create for my students. 

Utilising social media in the classroom effectively, especially in terms of creating authentic learning, will be one of my goals for next year in the MLE. 

Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Social media for teaching and learning. Babson Survey Research Group. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-2013-report.pdf

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