Integrating Social Media Tools

My telecollaborative project was, The World Responds:  Catastrophic Events Around the World.  The goal was to increase global awareness of catastrophes that have/had occurred around the world and its effects on our daily lives and the world.  The activity encouraged and helped students to understand what was at stake in our world today, and to develop interpersonal skills to promote empathy, dialogue, and respect for diverse opinions in order to connect communities, cultures, and classrooms from all over the world.

I think this project would have worked great if I had students use wikis.  The class activity project was designed to allow students in different locations around the world to research, collect, and share information about a major catastrophic event that occurred in their community or country.  Wikis would have proven beneficial since it would have allowed students to contribute news articles, personal narratives of their experiences, poetry, art, photographs, and video to inform and explain to others of these events.  The audience could have also viewed and read how students were taking an active role in solving the problems by enacting community and world responsibilities e.g. make others around the world aware through student fundraisers/projects to support those in need and devastated by the events.  Using wikis would allow students to create documents collaboratively with others, and students from various locations could learn from and respond to these publishing projects.

I think the challenges of using the wikis would be the upkeep or the maintenance of the content since wikis allow users to create and edit interlinked web pages in order to share and create content.  These wiki web pages can be edited, deleted, or created by anyone who visits the site which may pose a problem.  It is very important to remind students to not provide personal information and making sure students are aware of being safe on the internet.  Also, it is important that teachers teach students proper wiki etiquette such as writing in complete sentences and using correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation; no name calling, slang, or cursing; and be brief, stick with the facts, and negotiate and create truth.

Social Media Tools....Here to Stay!!

Social media is not going away any time soon.  It has pretty much become an important part of most people’s everyday lives.  It's not uncommon to see people viewing and posting as well as uploading some type of photo or video on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or blogs.  Net Geners, are reshaping our society through school and the workplace.  It shows how their impact is causing these institutions to adapt or "should" adapt and make changes based on their need for freedom, to customize, to collaborate and interact, innovate, scrutinize, and to have fun at work and at school.  I was reading an article on www.blackamericaweb.com that reported how The Pew Research Center released a report that showed the usage of Internet users who use social media tools.  The report breaks down the use of social media among race, gender and geographic location.  It found that 67 percent of the online population overall uses Facebook and that Twitter was especially popular with people aged 18-29 (please see chart at end of post).

This should make teachers definitely think how these tech tools can be implemented within instruction to engage and build a foundation for future student learning.  These social media tools are how the world communicates.  I know that some educators may think that these social media tools may cause distractions to student learning.  However, if teaching strategies are used effectively these social media tools can lead to creative learning and a productive approach to making social media part of ongoing learning.  Example lesson ideas for students could be having students to creatively and collaboratively express themselves by contributing to a blog, designing websites, uploading video presentations, and creating Facebook pages for class projects. I think providing experiences using social media would provide students an opportunity to communicate with real audiences, construct their own learning, utilize higher level thinking and inquiry skills, use other resources besides textbooks, allow for exciting and  interactive activities where they are learning by doing, build future professional skills, and become not only digitally literate, but good users of information.

Since being in the ITS program, I have learned that educators must begin to reinvent their knowledge base, move beyond the basics of implementing technology in instruction, and begin adapting teaching methods that reflect the characteristics of how Net Geners learn.  However, I strongly feel that for educators to link technology with learning and to help students become good information users there must be in-depth training of these digital tools and technology.  Teachers need the time to learn, explore, reflect, and collaborate with other educators in regards to these new skills and tech tools.  In order for students to develop digital literacy skills and be effective information users, teachers themselves must be skilled, competent, and comfortable with using technology.

Image taken from blackamericaweb.com