Activity 6: Using social online networks in teaching or professional development

Social media in teaching

People have always been looking for ways to connect and network with each other. And, in this age of digitisation, people have found ways to be socially active on the internet, which is possible with the advent of the numerous social networking platforms and apps.

Social online networks have also grown in numbers by leaps and bounds. As per the statistics revealed on Statista, approximately 2 billion users used social networking sites and apps in 2015. 

In my teaching profession the main social online platform I have used is Blogging and Twitter  to connect and collaborate with students around New Zealand. At my previous school in Cambridge my Year 2 class and our Year 8 buddy class worked collaboratively every Thursday afternoon to respond and connect with others through Kidsedchatnz. We would review the blog questions over the week then on a Thursday the older students would support the younger students to share these answers and comment on answers of others on Twitter.

I agree with Sharples et al (2016) that social networking can support "creativity, collaboration, communication and sharing of resources." In my experience through KidschatNZ I have seen multiple benefits in the use of social media in the classroom. Kidschatnz gave my class practical hands on activities to do in the class each week. As we participated in these activities my students made their own connections, knowledge and experiences. They became the experts. When they then shared these through Twitter they began to share this expertise, connecting with other students who had done the same activity, conversing about triumphs and challenges, experiences and thoughts. The excitement of seeing the comments of others was one such tool that I found powerful. The way I set up the room meant the students could see the live comments on the screen as they popped up. This was also powerful as it was an instant documentation of the responses from not just our school but across the country. On such example of all of this was a Kidschat blog prompt which asked my students to  build a tower out of only newspaper, cellotape, 10 sticks and 2 plates. We were learning about team work and working together. After this shared experience we met up with our buddy class (a tuakana teina relationship) and tweeted with schools around the country, adding photos of our towers, commenting about what we found hard and techniques we found beneficial. This was exactly what Sharples et al (2016) was talking about when he said that Social networking makes it possible to involve and draw on the experiences of others. 

Teaching younger students has always meant that simply using the technology to connect to social netwroking can prove challenging. The typing, access, safety, and understanding around the platform of Twitter for example takes strategic teaching of explicit skills. Having a tuakana teina relationship with older students who have these skills meant my younger students could access the social media easier.

One such 'bump' in my road of using social media in my classroom this year is I have moved schools. My new school network blocks all forms of social media that I see beneficial to connecting with others; most importantlyTwitter. For this technical reason I have stopped participating with my class in such Kidschats. This blog post subject has reminded me of all the benefits my students are missing out on because of the limited access. Maybe if I show my Principal and ICT leader some of the captured learning from previous years I could unlock Twitter and also unlock a way to connect my students to others around New Zealand. 

Social media in professional development

Other than Kidschat, which is structures and rather controlled)I am still a bit cautious around social media. Maybe this is why I have not pushed it in my new school since arriving. Sometimes, during off site professional development, I feel that the use of Twitter is pushed onto me by others. I feel pressured to add, follow, re tweet, tweet to be connected or access and resources or I will miss out. I feel like it is hard to keep on top of all of this. Is it a fad? I can’t help but cringe hearing or reading Donald Trump's tweets. Does this impact others views on twitter? I wonder sometimes, How honest are people really? When you post or tweet or comment you tone it down, keep it professional. I question, would you have as much spark or tone and understanding of time through these platforms. Fluidity of conversations must run better in person. As a fairly reserved person I feel confidence comes to play a huge part in ones participation in social media. You have to have a level of confidence that what you are wanting to say is worth saying and people want to hear it. I don't feel I have the confidence to project my thoughts in such a public forum. Sure they might be my peers but you leave yourself open to the unknown. Where does that comment go? What comments follow on from it?

I do however want to over some these challenges (mainly in my thinking) and harness the potential benefits of social media.

Building a trusting community within the school to use a platform such as a blog (amongst the staff) could be a way to conduct reflections that all staff get to see and can add into.

• We could start professional conversations via the principal prior to a staff meeting about an important area of new thinking. This could be held on a blogger platform. e.g. hataitaischoolreflection.blogspot.co.nz .
• Our Code, Our Standards could be linked as ‘tags’ or ‘labels’.
• Teachers would participate in a professional conversation by then adding their comments, thoughts, understandings.
• This would be private to the staff (not public to the community)
• This would be great to document professional conversations for appraisals.

It would be great to also use blogger for a PRT to keep a running log of ongoing reflections, examples from their class,

REFERENCES:

The part (p.12-14) of this Innovative Pedagogy report from Open University explains how social media can be used effectively to enhance the learning.

Source: 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

 (2017). Number of social media users worldwide 2010-2021 | Statista. Statista. Retrieved 23 October 2017, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/