Using Social Media in the classroom – What do you think?
CBC Alberta @ Noon’s Donna McElligott had University of Calgary professor Patrick Finn taking calls on the new way students are using social media and technology in the classroom. It was a great conversation. Callers had a wide range of opinions on the matter. Here is the podcast: calgwildrose.xml
If it doesn’t open for you, here is the direct link: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/calgwildrose_20110412_96303.mp3
What do you think?
We are all familiar with both Facebook and Twitter, which can lead to some pretty heated debates on their appropriateness in education. There are also social bookmarking applications such as Diigo and Delicious and social video websites such as Youtube and Vimeo. Even search engines such as Blekko that are using social networking strategies that allow users to share information and build their networks in different ways. Our politicians are using social networking to reach a larger audience which proved to be a particularly useful strategy in the recent Calgary election with Mayor Naheed Nenshi who used Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to get his platform out there. With the Canadian election campaigns in full swing, you can find all the candidates contributing to many of these networking platforms.
The following Rick Mercer rant sparked a huge movement with student voters across Canada who are now using social networking and social media to get their message out there. They are posting videos on Youtube and organizing themselves on Facebook and Twitter. The video posted on Youtube by University of Victoria students already has over 12,000 views and it was only posted on April 7th. Mount Royal University students in Calgary have taken a different approach by urging students ‘not to vote’. Read CBC article http://tinyurl.com/3mp4m7v
University of Victoria students voting strategy
University of
So what can education take away from this? I’d love to hear what you have to say.
There are many ways to use social media in education to connect students to each other. This connectivity has already been established to a degree through the adoption of learning management systems in most colleges and universities (Blackboard,Angel,WebCT), but social media also connects us to others outside the learning community. These might be the most meaningful reactions of all. Students who are able to connect their learning to sources outside the sphere of their immediate communities become part of a larger discussion. In turn, students can take elements of these discussions and use them to enrich the work they do in the classroom and contribute new perspectives into the classroom dialogue.
From recent attention by youth towards voting on social media, we can see that students are empowered by electronic media to spread their message in a relatively easy, low-cost, and effective way.
I believe the potential of this medium is due to the immediacy in which these connections can be made and how quickly current information can be shared. They have empowered everyday people to spread a message to millions, but in order to fully capitalize on this medium, people need to be literate (at least) in it’s use and saavy in it’s application. This will only continue to increase as our world becomes more immediate and connected. Students who are given the tools to explore and exploit this to further their educational/professional ambitions will have a desired skill set to compete in the global workplace.
As most students are already familiar with many social networking mediums, their classroom application is more natural and enjoyable than in the past when students needed to ‘learn software’ in order to take part. Furthermore, the connectivity is engaging and gives students a reason to keep returning to their online project again and again. Every post, comment, or addition by outsiders re-engages the dialogue.
There are pitfalls. Social media is first and foremost a form of entertainment. It’s use also requires exposure to a large amount of advertising. If students lack self-control or motivation it is easy to become distracted, offtrack, or interact with the topics in a superficial way. The use of such tools in education must always be backed up with a student awareness of the activities purpose, the outcomes desired from the activity, and presented as an opportunity to connect, rather than a chance to tune-out. Instead of being limited by Twitter’s 140 character maximum, exploit its limitations by challenging students to distill their message down to its essence in a short summary.
I have included a link to the class wiki on the topic of ‘activism’ that my students in ESL Literacy developed last year. They managed to lure viewers from over 30 different countries to their website by exploiting Facebook and other social networking sites. They used the site to practice reading, writing, editing each other’s work, and having online discussions. The benefit of not being tied down to an LMS was that the site was public and encouraged viewers to engage with the topics.
http://yitactivism.intodit.com is the link to access the Youth In Transition Activism Wiki