Social Media in the Classroom

One thing that my Educational Technology Cohort is really teaching me is the value of Social Media.  I have definitely valued social media in my own personal life, but hadn't thought of all the things that it could do in my teaching.  I read a few articles about this idea, and realize that the sky is the limit where Social Media is concerned.

The first article I read had to do with teachers in the arts.  For visual and music arts, there are many different uses for social media that could be explored in my classroom.  With regards to composing, there are so many different applications and sites that can help students create songs.  Students can then post their songs and creations on a website for feedback from peers and for instant feedback from the teacher.  One of the greatest things that came out of this article though, was the idea of social media as help for the arts teachers to connect.  Often times, the music teacher or art teacher is the only of its kind in a building.  This makes it hard to collaborate with others and come up with new, fresh ideas for your teaching.  The article talks about Nings, blogs, and even Facebook to connect with other teachers.  Pinterest is another social networking tool not mentioned in the article but very useful for other teachers to collaborate as well.

The second article I read was about bringing social networking into the classroom.  The main idea of the article talked about how students and parents use social media so often in their personal lives that it is second nature to them.  Why then, aren't we using this in our classrooms and our schools?  Some projects mentioned included students blogging about a trip they took and using Skype to contact schools in another country for a project.  The Skype project had a class communicating and had different jobs for each child, including photographer, secretary, tweeters, and fact checkers.  It was a great way to engage students in plenty of different ways.  Another idea that came up was a project that involved smart phones and ways for students to post questions or comments about homework.  Educators didn't think that it would work, but then when they posted a question about linear equations, they had 75 students create videos to help their peers.  This article also brings up the idea of Professional Development by talking about the Twitter hash tag #edchat and all the comments and ideas that come from that for teachers.

Social Media is really transforming the world in many ways, so teachers need to jump onto the train.  We need to be using different sites for our own Professional Development and also using different Social Media to engage our students in the classroom.  With more training and more time to explore, the classroom can extend its boundaries to the home and beyond so students can become more engaged.

Ash, K. (2011). Art and music learning emphasize interactivity, real-world relevance. Education Week, 30(35), S12-S14.

Davis, M. (2010). Social networking goes to school. Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review, 76(3), 14-19.