Activity 7: Social Media

Social media in learning and teaching and professional development.

My views on social media use in learning and teaching and in professional development. 

• What are some key features of social media that you have identified as beneficial for teaching and learning?

In regards to teaching and learning and professional development, its clear that social media/connectivity has resulted in a lot of benefit on education system (Melhuish 2013). Social media, provides an intrinsic opportunity for learners to engage with the subject matter informally outside of the classroom by collaborating with their peer group (Gouseti 2014). This enhanced learning (Silius et al. 2010) occurs without the explicit instructional focus on summative outcomes for learning as students with the study were highly motivated towards using social media. 

Some of the other benificial features of social media is that students experience greatly levels of gamification and gain a great deal of peer affirmation using social media (Kapp, 21012). In the text Social Media Tools and Platforms in Learning Environments (White et al. 2011), it is mentioned that social media can be harnessed to describe and implement new paradigms for communication, learning, and education.

Learners are venturing into places that formal educators may never go, absorbing new kinds of knowledge, creating their own interactive learning arenas, and joining 24/7 global dialogues in affinity spaces such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube- (Sharpe, Beetham, & de Freitas, 2010)

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  Pearsons: Social Media for teaching and learning

• What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities?

Whilst researching social media for my other assignments, an ongoing theme arises around the failure of teachers to effectively use social media to not only engage but actively build learning focused relationships through social media (Gouseti, 2012 & Gouseti 2014). The studies conducted by Gouseti (2012), involved a range of schools in Britain and Greece and were part of the larger e-twinnings study into collaborative learning. Many participants gave feedback about learning collaboratively on procedural tasks which Gouseti (2012) negates as educators not fully utilizing the opportunity for collaborative learning. Learning collaboratively online is a fairly new paradigm and educators need to move away from previous notions of procedural or rote learning with the context of collaboration.

Some of the other challenges relate to the capacity of educators to provide safety for their learners whilst they are online. Its not just about protection with firewalls or filters but rather equipping learners to make appropriate and independent decisions about their online behaviour.

Kenny, 2014 

• How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional development?

I am currently using social media in a range of formats to enhance my own professional development, by providing a way to share my learning and to collaborate with others. One of the main ways to use it in the future would is similarly stated by Gouseti (2014) - as providing a platform for myself and my learners to engage with each others, outside of the formal learning environment. 

During the course of the DCL assignments I have regularly found the online collaborative aspect (which I have covered in previous posts) as the single most beneficial factor to using social media. Also there are other extrinsically motivating factors like the fact that a lot of people boast about their success on social media forums which goes against the normal 'Tall poppy syndrome" that exists in education.

Reference

Gouseti, A. (2012). A comparative investigation of the use of digital technologies to facilitate school collaboration within the framework of the eTwinning programme. Institute of Education (University of London).

Gouseti, A. (2014). Digital Technologies for School Collaboration. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Joosten, T.( 2013. October 22). Pearson: Social Media for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved fromhttp://www.slideshare.net/tjoosten/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-27456257?ref=http://professorjoosten.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/pearson-social-media-for-teaching-and.html

Kapp, K. M. (2012). The gamification of learning and instruction: game-based methods and strategies for training and education. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

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...

Sharpe, R., Beetham, H., & de Freitas, S. (2010). Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age : How Learners are Shaping their Own Experiences. New York: Taylor and Francis.

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-publication/article/view/55/39

White. B.,King, I.,Tsang, P. (2011). Social Media Tools and Platforms in Learning Environments. Retrieved from http://www.eblib.com