Social media - it seems to have a bad rap. We're all familiar with folks who share their breakfast menu on Twitter, or who describe their child's latest bowel movements on Facebook, or who post pictures of their feet on Instagram. And there are privacy concerns involving revealing your personal life on a public forum. (I have a presentation I make to our students which shows that nothing they post is ever "private.") The result has been that many intelligent folks have sworn off social media. "I'm not interested in Twitter - I don't want to waste time reading all about what time someone else got out of bed this morning." But are there valid uses for social media? In particular, does it have a role in the educational world?
Let me share some examples of positive uses of social media.
Now you'll notice that these are all uses of social media by teachers for teachers primarily, and not for students. Some educators are also making effective use of social media with their students - for example, having them tweet their responses to the evening's reading assignment. I personally am not there yet - there are enough privacy concerns revolving around our students that I don't want to encourage them to get involved with social media. I realize most of them already are on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or other sites. But, at this point, I am not ready to push students in that direction. There are useful closed social media resources which can be used with students. For example, Edmodo can provide a Facebook-like interaction among students, and todaysmeet.com allows teachers to set up a discussion similar to Twitter, but which is only available to the students in the class.
When it is used properly, social media can be a great way for teachers to extend their personal learning network and gain new insights into teaching. I encourage you to give it a try - just don't post what time you got to the gym this morning!
Let me share some examples of positive uses of social media.
- I have a Twitter account (@kirbyeducation) which I use solely for educational purposes. One of these is to participate in "Twitter chats." Here's how it works: at a set time each week, set by the person moderating it, anyone who is interested can follow a unique hashtag (such as #byotchat, for "Bring Your Own Technology"). The moderator might pose a question, such as "What is the first technology tool you recommend for your teachers?" Then anyone is free to respond with their ideas. Everyone following the hashtag will see everyone else's responses, and can reply back to them. It's similar to a roundtable discussion of educators discussing a specific topic. I always find some excellent ideas from these twitter chats. For more information, go to Jerry Blumengarten's excellent site.
- School leaders use Twitter to keep the school parents informed of all the good things that are happening in their school. Face it - most children don't go home and tell their parents, "Guess what? We learned about Avogadro's Number today in Chemistry." Most of the time, all the parents hear from their children are the negatives: "Mrs. Bellyache made me sit out of recess today." But with Twitter, the school leader can quickly send something like, "I enjoyed seeing Mrs. Goodteacher's children recite the 10 commandments today." Or he can snap a picture of some high school students dissecting frogs and tweet it out. These are not the type of things he would send out in a press release, but parents love to hear about what their children are doing in school. And it only takes a few minutes a day.
- Teachers are sharing their creative ideas through Pinterest. For example, on one board a teacher has posted ideas on how to help students set New Year goals, 25 ways to make writing fun, six strategies for checking comprehension, and the top 10 ways to assess your students. There's a wealth of information. Is it all immediately useful? Of course not. But there are plenty of resources to choose from. And the benefit is that these are posted by other teachers who have already found them useful to them. So you're not having to dig through stuff that might be way off base. If one teacher believes this is helpful, it might be helpful to you.
Now you'll notice that these are all uses of social media by teachers for teachers primarily, and not for students. Some educators are also making effective use of social media with their students - for example, having them tweet their responses to the evening's reading assignment. I personally am not there yet - there are enough privacy concerns revolving around our students that I don't want to encourage them to get involved with social media. I realize most of them already are on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or other sites. But, at this point, I am not ready to push students in that direction. There are useful closed social media resources which can be used with students. For example, Edmodo can provide a Facebook-like interaction among students, and todaysmeet.com allows teachers to set up a discussion similar to Twitter, but which is only available to the students in the class.
When it is used properly, social media can be a great way for teachers to extend their personal learning network and gain new insights into teaching. I encourage you to give it a try - just don't post what time you got to the gym this morning!