Social Media.

SOCIAL MEDIA

To reflect on my practice regarding social media there are two key areas I feel I need to address:

1 How to get social media to enhance, extend or enforce learning

2 The advantages and pitfalls of using social media as a professional development.

Not being a great user of twitter/facebook/google+/instagram, although aware of their existence and widespread use, I have always been sceptical and reluctant in engaging with students over any social media. Even "friending" a student has certain connotations that seem to overstep the boundaries of professional relationships and feels uncomfortable in the way that adults/students conduct themselves. Aligned with this is a constant backdrop of press/tv coverage of inappropriate relationships spawned out of  conversations over facebook or supposedly innocuous postings with pictures and comments which ultimately have seen disciplinary action and in some cases the loss of the teacher's position. 

The Teachers Council has a code of ethics (2015)  and despite this, and a huge dose of common sense, the PPTA  deals with a huge number of consistent issues around social media and allocates a substantial sum to deal with them. All of this is underpinned by the notion that learning can take place anywhere anytime and that teachers make themselves available to respond to students' postings/queries/concerns/requests almost instantaneously. This persuasive pretext provides even greater disinclination to participate allied with the exponential time demand to provide your own feed, let alone respond.

So bearing this in mind, it has taken a monumental shift to consider proactively using social media in my practice and I have to say I have been surprised at the opportunities and openness with which I am prepared to engage with social media.

The opportunities I have identified in my practice  to engage with social  media are:

1. Create a Facebook group for my subject area and get everyone to follow. The advantage is that I can post notes to remind students about the instructions of important assignments, as well as the submission deadlines. I can encourage students to post links to great online resources related to the curriculum and set discussion topics every week while inviting everyone to discuss. I would allow and encourage students to ask any questions they have and encourage them to search for new online resources that make learning fun, and share the links throughout the group.

2. Use blogging for students’ homework assignments and classroom activities where several “bloggers” can collaborate within a group. The blog can be used for posting discussion topics and inviting everyone to comment. Students who missed the classes can keep up with the coursework.

3. Use Twitter for bringing fun into the classroom by introducing a daily hashtag related to a certain topic and ask each student to discover a fun fact related to it.

4. Pinterest for pinning educational resources. Getting students to create their own boards to understand what each individual is mostly interested in.

5. Use YouTube for the flipped classroom concept and watching material instead of writing homework.

The key element of generating all this user generated content is time and eventually I would envisage the facebook page  being monitored and facilitated by the students taking responsibility. This is supported by Sillus et al (2009) who suggests that  “Linking together studies and spare time needs active students in the environment. These active users could be regular students but especially peer tutors, members of various clubs, students working actively in study groups and personnel”. (Silius et al. 2013, p60)

Social Media in my professional development.

The Mindlab course has introduced me to access Twitter, Google+ regularly and create a community through facebook. These interconnected communities allow me to observe and analyse the information arriving through the feeds, resulting in a decision whether to engage or contribute. On reflection I feel that in general I am “anti social“ in these types of forums; I recognise the advantages but still feel reluctant to engage. I’ve yet to attend a course where the Twitter feed is more compelling than the information being presented, but it does provide an opportunity to view other individuals' thoughts and comments. I also fully understand the advantages where the learning and networking has extended beyond the walls and hours of the allocated formal professional development time and space. There has been an abundance of thought provoking postings which have captured my interest, as well as links shared and ideas bounced around. I could spend all day following these threads but in reality I desire a social life outside of the virtual network which appears to demand our constant attention. 

New Zealand Teachers Council. Before you share.(2015) retrieved fom   http://www.teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/sites/default/files/resources/Before-you-share_0.pdf

New Zealand Teachers Council. Ethical use of social media, (2015) retrieved from  http://www.teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/sites/default/files/resources/Guidelines%20-%20ethical%20use%20of%20social%20media_0.pdf

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrived on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han.

Silius, K., Miilumäki, T.,Huhtamäki, J.,Tebest, T., Meriläinen, J., & Pohjolainen, S.(2010) ‘Students’ motivations for social media enhanced studying and learning.’ Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal, 2, (1). Retrieved on 7th May,2015 from http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-p.