Activity 6: Getting Connected: Social Online Networks and My Teachin
Social
media can be an effective tool for engaging with learners and communicating
with parents, whanau and communities. Teachers who model good social media use
will grow learners who apply positive, respectful values in their interactions
on social media platforms. - Education Council,
New Zealand
On
the New Zealand Ministry of Education website there is a page that provides
information for parents about their Facebook and Twitter accounts. It seems
even the Ministry is ‘getting connected’... and yet, the use of social media in
my practice is something that I struggle with. I am not a big user of social
media personally; I have a Facebook account, that I hit the odd ‘like’ button
on, but other than that I delight in my internet anonymity! The creation of
this blog, and the interactions within the Google+ community for this Mindlab
course have been a big step outside my comfort zone.
Don’t
get me wrong, I love a good discussion or reflection on professional practice!
And I encourage the sharing of resources and ideas - but in person, face to
face, where responses are immediate and perspectives can be clarified and
explained in real time. However, Melhuish, points out that
these days, with mobile-supported access to social media, asynchronous
communication can sometimes be so rapid it is virtually in real time. Not only
that, but a greater number of people (others from different communities with
new knowledge or diverse perspectives, experts or mentors) can participate; and
as time and place do not limit the interactions, members can always be present
in the network, feeding the loop in rapid cycles and creating a highly
responsive learning environment. Despite not having used this myself, I can see
the benefits of utilising social media for professional development. Not only
that, but I can see it as a way of staying connected to the professional
teaching community. At the end of this year I will be going on maternity leave,
and see professional social networks as a potential lifeline between me and my
career (or perhaps sanity)!
Another
challenge I face with contributing to social media is just how time consuming I
find it. I want my contributions to be meaningful, relevant, something that I
think is worthy of publishing into a public forum and that others would want to
engage with. Social media, when used unsuccessfully, presents learners with inaccurate
information and biased comments; and sites can contain a lack of quality
control, and poorly thought through ideas. I have no desire to add to this
noise, which results in me “lurking,” rather than actively contributing; or
spending precious time trying to craft the right response. At a previous school
I worked at I dabbled with a class blog, which I updated with children’s work
or experiences. However, I found the time spent on it was not worth the amount
of parent or student interaction on it. Despite promoting it, only five
children and parents ever participated with it! This demonstrated the
importance of community buy-in and engagement, and I think highlights a
difficulty in transitioning parents from one platform (in person) to a new one
(digital). Utilising social media as broadcast accounts for parents
definitely has merit, but begs the question, for ease of use, should the
platform be uniform schoolwide? In my experience, for parents with children in
different classes using different platforms, this has been a source of
confusion.
Despite
the challenges I have personally had utilising social media in my practice, I
do understand the benefits of its use in communicating with parents and
engaging in professional conversations and development with other educators.
Importantly, social media can also be a tool for helping teach the “soft-skills” students will need
in our changing job market - creativity, collaboration, connectivity, being
challenged, facing criticism, participation, self-managed learning and
communication.
At
the end of the day social media is another tool to use in education. It needs
to be focused and directed to be effective.
References:
Britland,
M. (2012, July 26). Social media for schools: a guide to Twitter, Facebook and
Pinterest. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2012/jul/26/social-media-teacher-guide
Education
Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. (2017). What is Social Media. Retrieved
from http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/what-social-media
Melhuish,
K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’
professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved
from
Ministry
of Education. (2017). For Parents. Retrieved from https://parents.education.govt.nz/site-details/social-media/
Pascoe,
M. (2017, July 3). Activity 3: Global trends, Education, and Me! Retrieved
http://megsmindlab.blogspot.co.nz/2017/07/activity-3-global-trends-education-and.html
Sharples,
M., de Roock , R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., Kukulska-Hulme,
A., Looi,C-K, McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., Wong, L. H. (2016).
Innovating Pedagogy 2016: Open University Innovation Report 5. Milton
Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved from http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf
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