After reading Christine Greenhow and Cathy Lewin's Social Media and Education: Reconceptualizing the Boundaries of Formal and Informal Learning, I thought about how I could implement this in the classroom.
I love using collaboration in the classroom, when I can hear my students thinking as they work with each other, and see their minds at work. It would be even better seeing their communication through technology, not to mention that doing so would allow them to practice written communication and practice using technology to learn and communicate. I do not think I will be able to use traditional social media platforms with my K12 students, but I do believe that there are educational tools out there that could help simulate the experience.
One tool I know I want to try out with my future students is blogging. I am enjoying the way blogging about my experiences has me work with what I am learning creatively. I try to show my students that working with information in different ways allows them to understand it better. In math, I have them do a "Correct and Reflect" so that they can look at their work in a different light. I wonder if having them blog about what they are learning would be helpful too?
I think using some online tools for the students to communicate together online would help foster a stronger sense of community. The language of likes, tweets, replies, and emojis are already how they interact outside of school, maybe bringing some of that into the classroom would help the communication and development of their thoughts.
However, there has to be a balance; we are not only trying to teach the concept and application of x,y and z, but also to lay the foundation for their future. Students need to be able to learn and communicate in the "real world" as well.
Thoughts?
Reference:
Christine Greenhow & Cathy Lewin (2016) Social media and education:
reconceptualizing the boundaries of formal and informal learning,
Learning, Media and Technology, 41:1, 6-30, DOI: 10.1080/17439884
reconceptualizing the boundaries of formal and informal learning,
Learning, Media and Technology, 41:1, 6-30, DOI: 10.1080/17439884
.2015.1064954
I think communicating online can help foster a community. I've been looking at ways to do that in our more restrictive K12 environment as well! In addition, I've thought about how it can help us teach digital etiquette. There is a way to express ourselves online while still demonstrating good manners. Maybe that sounds old fashioned but I think it is still important.
ReplyDeleteI agree, good manner are important, nothing old fashioned about it. Thank you for commenting!
DeleteI love the idea of including blogging into your practice and I can imagine how helpful it can be for some of the students! Maybe they'll be an influential blogger one day, who knows (OK a mathematician blogger :))! If I want to make a recommendation on that, there're some resources on how to manage that process and I'm also familiar with some resources! I'm more than happy to share if that'd be helpful to you. I want to say 'Go for it!!!' and see how your students will respond to that and then you can still work on it, maybe adjust around, or what not! Sounds very exciting..
ReplyDeleteI would be so thankful if you shared those resources! I will not have my own classroom for a bit so no rush ;) Thank you!
DeleteBlogging could be a neat tool! I would just be hesitant to use any social media that allowed any interaction outside the classroom with K12 students.
ReplyDelete