Two of the videos on our portal this week I think are worth sharing, and give a great introduction to this subject. The first is a teacher who uses social media extensively in her classroom with her students, and gives a snapshot as to how this can be done, even with young students:
The second rings very true to me and is all about Connected Educators, and how being connected online is not only valuable, but essential in today's education context:
Even as someone already converted, I come away from watching these videos re-inspired and itching to explore the latest posts in my Twitter feed!
The Education Council defines social media as embracing "web-based and mobile-based technologies to facilitate interactive communication between organisations, communities and individuals". Interactive communication is the key phrase here. The ITL Rubrics identify collaboration and skilled communication as essential 21st Century Skills, not to mention use of ICT for learning. First and foremost, these are skills our students need now in order to live and work in the 21st Century. However it is not just learning the skills themselves, it is the incredible learning that comes from having an entire world at your fingertips.
Extending my use of social media in the classroom is a personal goal of mine, as I have only scratched the surface with my students. Our class blog is a fantastic tool for sharing information and learning, and we use it daily in our learning space. However it is currently teacher led and I'm looking forward to increasing student ownership of this process. The children are also building their own online portfolios through Seesaw and as well as sharing learning, they learn a lot about online feedback and commenting. I also plan to have a class Twitter account going later this year so that we can start communicating with other classes around the world.
There are, of course, challenges involved, particularly around cyber safety. However I feel that is another argument for including social media in our teaching programme, to help children learn to be safe online and use these tools appropriately. The same applies to students finding it a distraction - we need to teach our kids the skills needed to be efficient and mindful users of technology.
When it comes to my professional development, Twitter has had by far the biggest impact on my practice. One thing that makes it stand out is that my account is a professional one, and purely dedicated to education. So I can easily dip in and out and only see content relevant to teaching and learning. The scheduled chats are what makes Twitter really come into its own though. I have been time poor this year so far and only managed a couple, but they are SO worthwhile in terms of sharing, challenging, exploring and connecting.
I am also increasingly seeing the value in Facebook groups and have got more out of this recently. I have dabbled in the VLN and received great insight from my small experience. I also plan to keep an educational blog up after MindLab finishes and start building a list of others to visit regularly.
As the Connected Educators video says above, we promote being lifelong learners so we need to walk the talk and get out there ourselves!
References:
Education Council, Teachers & Social Media, Retrieved 6 March 2016, from http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/
21st Century Learning Reference Group, ITL Research, Retrieved 5 March 2016, from http://www.itlresearch.com/images/stories/reports/21cld%20learning%20activity%20rubrics%202012.pdf
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