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?
As part of my own professional development I have become member of many different organisations and also subscribe to many websites and forums. These organisations/websites relate to design, architecture, newspapers, research and literature etc. I also subscribe to design channels on YouTube such as PBS, IDEO, How To Think like an Architect, Innovation, sketch-a-day etc. They contain many educational videos that benefit me. I am a member of a Facebook group that comprises of technology teachers from within the central cluster. This forum is generally used to share good practice, seek clarifications and at times to seek feedback on student work.
What are some key features of social media that you have identified as beneficial for teaching and learning?
As a teacher of design and technology my students engage in a lot of collaboration. Facebook provides the platform for students to collaborate with each other regarding issues that they are facing in their learning. It also provides video calling facility that makes communication to be more interactive between the parties. The added advantage of having the conference call feature makes learning conversations even easier. The benefits of learning via online chat have been summarized by Swaffar (1998), who indicates that chats "seem to help all individuals engage more frequently, with greater confidence, and with greater enthusiasm in the communicative process than is characteristic for similar students in oral classrooms" (p. 1). In my design class this feature of Facebook actually makes it really handy allowing students to use it to share design ideas and get feedback on their design in a timely manner. However, the relevance of YouTube though cannot be ignored in all this. I regard it as an extremely powerful tool if used well to learn or relearn lessons at students own pace. Vygotskyan constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978) proposes that knowledge construction and meaning-making are best done via scaffold collaboration. YouTube provides students with a comment and discussion feature for most videos allowing for collaboration to occur. However, the ability of Facebook to host videos and YouTube links gives our students an added advantage of being able to use the social media platform to deliberate or consolidate their knowledge of the learned concept in greater detail without the formality of the classroom.
What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities?
There is a fear amongst teachers that most of our students get up to no good when they are online and this is not entirely true. Students can be immature and silly and that is understandable. One thing that does frustrate me as a teacher is that there are some people that I talk to who expect their students to behave like adults and do the right things all the time. This is never going to be possible. We have to teach our students to be more responsible and give them the freedom to explore. The challenges such as bullying, exposure to pornography, wrongful use of social media (i.e. Viewing/reading material that is unrelated to the work that is covered in class etc. are always going to be there no matter what. Things can go awry anywhere, within the confines of a classroom, on the bus or even at home. It is important to educate our students these issues as we increase our use of social media in our teaching.
What social media platform do you feel best supports engagement with your professional development? Why?
I have written extensively about Facebook and YouTube in this blog because I feel that these two are the best platforms to collaborate and share experiences. The video feature and the ability to link video and other sources of information onto Facebook make it even better. With You Tube one can comment and share their views as well as converse with each other gives users the opportunity to collaborate with each other albeit at a small scale compared to Facebook. The two have their own advantages and disadvantages but they do stand to be a cut above the rest in my own opinion.
Reference:
Swaffar, J. (1998). Networked language learning: Introduction. In J. Swaffar, S. Romano, P. Markley, & K. Arens (Eds.), Language learning online: Theory and practice in the ESL and L2 computer classroom. Austin, TX: The Daedalus Group. Retrieved July 17, 2007, from http://www.daedalus.com/downloads_public/llo/llo_standard.pdf
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Provocations
How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional development?
As part of my own professional development I have become member of many different organisations and also subscribe to many websites and forums. These organisations/websites relate to design, architecture, newspapers, research and literature etc. I also subscribe to design channels on YouTube such as PBS, IDEO, How To Think like an Architect, Innovation, sketch-a-day etc. They contain many educational videos that benefit me. I am a member of a Facebook group that comprises of technology teachers from within the central cluster. This forum is generally used to share good practice, seek clarifications and at times to seek feedback on student work.
What are some key features of social media that you have identified as beneficial for teaching and learning?
As a teacher of design and technology my students engage in a lot of collaboration. Facebook provides the platform for students to collaborate with each other regarding issues that they are facing in their learning. It also provides video calling facility that makes communication to be more interactive between the parties. The added advantage of having the conference call feature makes learning conversations even easier. The benefits of learning via online chat have been summarized by Swaffar (1998), who indicates that chats "seem to help all individuals engage more frequently, with greater confidence, and with greater enthusiasm in the communicative process than is characteristic for similar students in oral classrooms" (p. 1). In my design class this feature of Facebook actually makes it really handy allowing students to use it to share design ideas and get feedback on their design in a timely manner. However, the relevance of YouTube though cannot be ignored in all this. I regard it as an extremely powerful tool if used well to learn or relearn lessons at students own pace. Vygotskyan constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978) proposes that knowledge construction and meaning-making are best done via scaffold collaboration. YouTube provides students with a comment and discussion feature for most videos allowing for collaboration to occur. However, the ability of Facebook to host videos and YouTube links gives our students an added advantage of being able to use the social media platform to deliberate or consolidate their knowledge of the learned concept in greater detail without the formality of the classroom.
What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities?
There is a fear amongst teachers that most of our students get up to no good when they are online and this is not entirely true. Students can be immature and silly and that is understandable. One thing that does frustrate me as a teacher is that there are some people that I talk to who expect their students to behave like adults and do the right things all the time. This is never going to be possible. We have to teach our students to be more responsible and give them the freedom to explore. The challenges such as bullying, exposure to pornography, wrongful use of social media (i.e. Viewing/reading material that is unrelated to the work that is covered in class etc. are always going to be there no matter what. Things can go awry anywhere, within the confines of a classroom, on the bus or even at home. It is important to educate our students these issues as we increase our use of social media in our teaching.
What social media platform do you feel best supports engagement with your professional development? Why?
I have written extensively about Facebook and YouTube in this blog because I feel that these two are the best platforms to collaborate and share experiences. The video feature and the ability to link video and other sources of information onto Facebook make it even better. With You Tube one can comment and share their views as well as converse with each other gives users the opportunity to collaborate with each other albeit at a small scale compared to Facebook. The two have their own advantages and disadvantages but they do stand to be a cut above the rest in my own opinion.
Reference:
Swaffar, J. (1998). Networked language learning: Introduction. In J. Swaffar, S. Romano, P. Markley, & K. Arens (Eds.), Language learning online: Theory and practice in the ESL and L2 computer classroom. Austin, TX: The Daedalus Group. Retrieved July 17, 2007, from http://www.daedalus.com/downloads_public/llo/llo_standard.pdf
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press