From
one perspective, social media undoubtedly has the potential to transform the
educational system into a classroom without cultural boundaries. While this is
true, I am also aware of some of the challenges, hazards, and obstacles identified
by Karen Lederer, involved with
incorporating social media into the classroom. Admittedly, I am not an avid
user of social media. Yes, I have accounts on both Facebook and Twitter, but I
rarely post on either site, after all, creating and posting this blog has been
a new and challenging experience.
A number of studies indicate that although higher education faculty agrees that social media has value, there remains a great deal of hesitation and reservation about adopting this innovation in the classroom. A major factor from my experience and perspective is due to a lack of knowledge and comfort with utilizing and incorporating social media into the curriculum. Additionally, because I am working with learners who must learn to have direct contact, positive and effective interactions with children and families it makes it even harder to embrace SOCIAL media fully.
Overall, my goal is to assist the learners that I encounter with developing the capacity to interact positively with young learners. While there is a place for social media in education, I am still working through how it fits within my work with the pre-service early educator. With this in mind, I decided to use this blog post to assist with increasing my comfort level with social media and incorporating it into the higher education curriculum. Incorporating Social Media into the Classroom is a slide share slideshow that provided explanations for and examples of how to incorporate social media into the higher education classroom.
Incorporating Social Media into the Classroom from Florida State College at Jacksonville - Open Campus
Patrick Mott also created a blog titled Incorporating Social Media in Your Classroom. In his blog, Mott identified specific social media and activities as a means of incorporating social media into the classroom. How Teachers Use Social Media In The Classroom To Beef Up Instruction was another article that provided discussion on how to incorporate social media. Additional resources that identified social media sites specifically for educators included an article found on the Education World website, Best Social Media Sites for Teachers and on the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning website, The Top 18 Educational Social Networking Websites for Teachers.
Hi Tracey,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your very realistic look at social media. I am an avid consumer of social media, but strictly an amateur posting information. I think it would be a challenge to incorporate social media into the classroom, I think it can be done. More importantly, I think you should do it for the right reasons. What do you hope to do with it and why. An idea I had for this age group is simply a chat with another PreSchool class in other state/nation/continent. This could be a great cultural experience for the little guys. I believe your content is heavy on weather? Skype, Tweet, or chat about what the weather is like and why. How do they dress different that you? Just a thought. Anyway, I enjoyed the conversation.
Dan
Hi Tracey:
ReplyDeleteGreat resources - hoping I can apply some of them to the high school context. Thanks!
Hi, Tracey,
ReplyDeleteI just came across your blog and am enjoying your writing! I see that you haven't posted in a while, and I hope that you'll return to blogging.
You might be interested in an article on Facebook in higher education that I read this morning about how an associate professor at Baylor is using Facebook to help build community among his students: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/why-this-professor-is-encouraging-facebook-use-in-his-classroom/54223 Building community among Walden students is one reason why the Writing Center is on Facebook. We are not on Pinterest (yet?), but I know a lot of educators who use Pinterest with their classrooms. Did you end up trying it?
Happy writing!
~ Anne Shiell, coordinator of social media resources at the Walden University Writing Center