Activity Seven: Social Media

Activity Seven:  Social Media

The tools and features within social media that allow individuals to make connections, 

build networks, share learning, receive feedback from peers and grow one’s own learning 

are already challenging the purpose and even need for a classroom, 

as we’ve known it in the past.   Wells, R. (2015) 

Key features of social media beneficial for teaching and learning.

Social media it would seem is here to stay, or to process us through this part of educational history until another movement is created. Students coming through primary school now have only known a world that contains social media as an important form of communication. A comment in my class today was "we are going back to the old days", when they were told technology wouldn't be a part of their camp. They use it daily and the more we can hook into their prior knowing and skills, the better for our teaching and learning being 'real world' for them. 
Some key features of social media that I have found beneficial for teaching and learning are as follows;  

•  Linking into outside agencies to ask questions and receive answers. Information can be gathered of topics or statistics that are very current. This is invaluable in Inquiry learning and giving students learner agency when they want to choose their own direction. An example is in 2015 my students emailed and choose websites they could access people through, when investigating explorers throughout the world's history. As a class this year we have linked into the Sir Peter Blake Trust Auckland Island Adventure to ask questions and contact them by satellite phone. The students were extremely motivated and learnt a huge amount over the few sessions we did, because of the immediacy of feedback and contact. 
• Sharing experiences, expertise and opinions with others through blogging. Students could read the blogs put on the Sir Peter Blake Trust site by the teenage student they knew on the adventure, as well as all the other students chosen to go.  Sir Peter Blake Trust.  At present we are sharing work on our class site and posting feedback on other class sites in the school. Our students are working towards individual blogs later this year and are very keen to trial them themselves. They have the opportunity to not only share their work that they are proud of, but build their audience and gain insight into the thinking of others when they post discussion topics or questions, and receive and give feedback. 
• Surveying to gather ideas, opinions and statistics. We have used surveys in all curriculum areas and used the information gathered to create graphs and reports. Sites like Kahoot and Survey Monkey. 
• Connecting with other parts of the world through video. Next month we will start using Google hangouts to link myself back to the class, via video, from France where I will investigate some of the WW1 and WW2 sites pertinent to New Zealand and my students learning around Anzac Day.  

Potential challenges when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities.

Some challenges with social media platforms could be:

• Students being sidetracked or distracted from what they are doing as it is easy to link into all manner of other sites where unwanted or inappropriate advertising pops up. And set tasks are not completed.
• They post throw away comments to each other frequently, which could lead to cyber-bullying or harassment away from the classroom and school.
• Students have a naivety thinking all social media platforms are innocent and appropriate for them to use so persuade adults or older associates to sign them on.  
• Personal details can be shared inappropriately or even inadvertently, by themselves of peers.
• A misunderstanding around the reasons social media are being used in teaching and learning. 

Social media platforms that best support my engagement with professional development.

Over the time of the Mind Lab course I have joined Google+, Twitter, Ako Hiko, Facebook NZ Primary Teachers Group, and Blogspot to name a few. Others I have signed up to, I can't remember how to use or why I would! 
One of the social media platforms I feel best supports engagement with my professional development is google+. I am linking into this regularly, as notifications of posts pop up, and because of the groups I am connected to like Ako Hiko and Manaiakalani. Through Ako Hiko and Manaiakalani I have access to many new ideas, activities and discussions from other teachers in either digital classrooms or ILE classrooms or both. The links to workshops and new ways of thinking have been invaluable to the setting up of my own digital classroom, as well as fast tracking my personal professional development in the digital realm. 

Image Source

While reading the social media blog by Savelino Lepou (2015), I learnt about Quadblogging for the first time. This is a site and idea I would like to hook into with my class, so they have other groups as their audience outside the classroom and country.   

Social media that enhances my professional development.

I joined twitter at the Auckland uLearn conference 2015 and was able to participate in the multi-layered sharing at the conference at the time. I was also able to connect to many people that were quest speakers, presenters I hadn't seen but knew of or heard exciting things about, and fellow participants. I believe Twitter is a good place to access more information or research about a professional topic, and I can move from link to link accessing many different opinions or new learnings.