The use of social media in Teaching
Social media in my own teaching has taken quite an eclectic journey since the popularity of blogging took flight around 5 years ago (probably sooner). I initially used blogger with my senior students (yr5/6), where the children shared the class log in and used their name in the label area. It was designed as a communication tool with the class and parents and served as a form of digital portfolio, basically sharing learning with friends and whanau. I eventually changed this to Kidblog, which was easier to manage and children enjoyed it more. HOWEVER as much as I justified the fact that it provided an audience for the children and a form of portfolio, our audience was next to none and the impact was similar. A lot of this is on me, in reflection the majority of tasks were pretty low on the SAMR model. I gave it a break for a couple of years upon transferring to the Junior School, now teaching a year 2/3 class. We had a shared blog and twitter page, but again the audience was minimal and my own upkeep of this wasn't great either. So I took another break. I guess this highlights some of the 'social media' challenges - maintenance, effectiveness and audience.
Students' ability to reach out to faculty outside of regular classroom and office hours with
expectation of quick feedback is expanding the faculty workday as well as placing additional stress on the teaching process (Seaman, J., & Tinti-kane, H. (2013).pg 6 seam)
My students regardless of age wanted feedback from whanau and myself and they wanted to 'see the point' outside of 'doing blogging'. That was on me and my perspective and understanding.
I have been, and continue to, explore the SAMR model of teaching, making it an ongoing goal in my general infusion of technology into the classroom and our use of social media with our learning.
The emphasis is not just on mastering content, but also on acquiring skills to learn, unlearn and
relearn. These include the ability to change perspectives in the light of new information and
understanding. (Sharples, M., , … Wong, L. H. 2016 pg 5)
See-saw has started to make the most impact in my teaching around social networks. I've shared work and events using twitter, but one challenge I find it the upkeep of it. However I'm not against Twitter and my goal for next year is to make this a MUST, and to join the chapter chat process OR our own version of this. In the meantime see-saw has been great. I can partially 'flip' learning sharing links to certain students using folders, they can access on their ipads easily and rather than 'doing blogging or ICT' the children are utilising this for learning skills and explaining their understanding. The draw tool for maths, the talk tool for answering and explaining various reading responses around specific skills and the text tool for similar. Some lower level writers use 'spelling better' to help them express ideas more fluently - the issue with this, is they easily loose their documents, however see-saw is easy to save this too. They see the purpose and they enjoy using this. What's also helping, is the format is a little bit like 'junior facebook'. We have a reflection time where the children log on and browse the time line. They comment either verbally or with text, then check on their own folder to read the feedback. We obviously have boundaries and expectations around this, including ensuring everyone gets feedback etc (I do this too). A great way to ensure digital citizenship is taught and consolidated too. BUT this was an issue to start, silly comments and posts from students - nothing hurtful, but we quickly discussed relevance and responsibility. We can, but haven't shared with home yet, this will be our next step. But for now the in class network has been working really well. Sharing with another class may be a good next step too.
The growing interest in blended ways of learning, in online courses and communities networked
electronically, invites us to consider the extent to which technologies might mediate the typical
models of professional learning in ways that enhance teacher control over the process. (Melhuish,K, 2013 p9)
Melhuish, K. (2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’professional learning, 1994, 219. Retrieved from
http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/8482/thesis.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
Seaman, J., & Tinti-kane, H. (2013). Social Media for Teaching and Learning. Pearson, (October), 1–32. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com.
Sharples, M., De Roock, R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., … Wong, L. H. (2016). Innovating Pedagogy 2016 Exploring new forms of
teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.20677.04325
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