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I did some work recently for the EUN where we looked at the role of Social
Media in Learning and Education (SMILE). One of the outputs of my
contribution to the project was a professional development eLearning course for
European Teachers and Head Teachers on the use of Social Media in Schools.
As this part of the course has now
finished (and we have gone into the community development phase) I am
re-posting a version of the materials here so others can benefit from them.
This is part 3 of 6 - Using social media for learning and teaching -
pedagogical principles
Using social media for learning and teaching -
pedagogical principles: The Video
Social Media in Learning and Education (SMILE) - Video 3 of 6 - Using social media for learning and teaching - pedagogical princ from Ollie Bray on Vimeo.
Using social media for learning and teaching -
pedagogical principles: The Course Notes and Links
In unit one of
the SMILE Course we discussed some common characteristics of social media.
These characteristics included:
- Social Media challenges traditional models
- Social Media
allows people to communicate
- Social Media
allows people to collaborate
- Social Media
gives people an audience
- Social Media
services often remove hierarchy and
are built from the bottom up
- Social Media is open and transparent
It is important
to remember these characteristics, as they are also common characteristics
associated with education reform.
Many countries globally are trying to create
classrooms that challenge traditional
models and reverse the hierarchy,
allow young people to communicate
and collaborate, that provide
authentic audience for children’s
work and exist within systems that are both open and transparent.
This means that
by embracing the use of social media tools for learning and teaching we can
start to build a culture that may help contribute to the reform of our school
systems.
This post looks
as some examples of how social media has been used successfully to enhance
learning and teaching.
1. Cultural Relevance
Young people are
engaged when they are learning about things or with things that they can relate
too or that are relevant to them. Social media is highly cultural relevant at
the moment for young people (from Facebook to the Xbox Live) and harnessing
these tools for education can develop powerful contexts for learning.
Social media is
also highly relevant across society in the UK in 2011 eight out of the ten most
popular search terms were directly linked to a social website. Facebook was the
most popular search term in the UK.
2. Real-time Data
As all
experienced educators know one ingredient of a successful lesson is to try to
use up-to-date, real and authentic data rather than contrived data that young
people can not relate to. Twitter is a good social media service to help with
this because you can ask your twitter followers to provide you with data that
can then be used within the lesson.
One example of
this is the Twitter snow lesson where a teachers twitter network was asked where
they lived and if it was snowing. The tweets were plotted on to a Google Map
and then the map imported into Google Earth where the real-time satellite
imagery could be overlaid onto the map. The pattern that emerged provided an
excellent context for discussing the weather, weather patters and weather
systems.
Another example of how Twitter
has been used in Maths can be found here (http://goo.gl/tAAWp).
As well as collecting data from twitter followers there are
a number of twitter accounts that regularly provide information that can be
used in classes. One example of this is the UK War Cabinet
from the UK National Archives. By visiting or following this twitter account
you can watch the events of WWII unfold 70 years to the day through the
original Cabinet Papers. It is a good example of how comparative real-time data
can also be engaging for children and young people. Another great live example
is Titanic in
Real Time which documenting the journey of
the Titanic from its launch to fate exactly100 years to the day.
3. Collaboration
Social media tools can also be used to encourage
collaboration. Google Apps for Education
and Google Plus
provide some great (and free) collaboration tools to assist with learning and
teaching.
Google Docs
(which is part of the Google Apps for Education suite) provide actual real-time
collaboration for students and staff working on word-processing documents,
spreadsheets and presentations. You can have up to 50 people collaborating in
real time within a document.
Well-managed collaboration
on student projects normally results in an improved output and increased student pride. Meaningful
collaboration is also a vital skill within enterprise education.
Google Plus can equip classrooms with a free ten-seat
videoconference solution to allow face-to-face collaboration across geography,
time zones and classrooms. Along with other services such as Skype
in the Classroom
social media video conferencing provide a great opportunity to beam in experts
into your classroom.
4. Audience
Social media can
also be used to provide authentic audience for children’s work. A good place to
start might be the production of a Wikipedia Page for your school or an article
for something in your local area.
Writing, re-writing or editing an article about your school
in Wikipedia can easily be the output of a well researched cross-curricular
project and at the same time it is likely to improve the image / marketing of
your school (Wikipedia is very popular in
Google rankings).
This type of task is also hugely empowering for students. How often do they normally get to publish to the largest encyclopaedia in
the world?
Classroom blogs or blogs used as
ePortfolio can also be used to generate audience for young peoples work. Leamore
Primary School in
Walsall, UK is a great example of this. Each class has their own
class blog and each
pupil has their own blog which is used as an ePortfolio of their best work and
reflections on learning. The ePortfolio Blogs are password protected for safety
reasons but parents have access to the password so they can see what their
children have been learning about.
Another way to
provide audience for students work is through sites like YouTube - effectively
creating a school television station. A good example of this is the Drummond Community High School, Edinburgh, UK
Animation Club.
5. Data Collection
Social media can
also be used to collect information and date from students and other key
stakeholders. Tools like Survey
Monkey and Facebook Polls provide a great easy to use platform for this.
6. Research
Research into the
use of social media in schools is difficult because things change so quickly
before any meaningful longitudinal research can be done.
However, one
piece of research from Professor Stephen Heppell (University of Bournemouth,
UK) and Carole Chapman supported by the Nominet Trust and called Cloud
Learn (www.cloudlearn.net) is worth investigating.
The Phase One
Report that was published in January 2012 shares examples of how Social Media
Tools such as Facebook, mobile phones, YouTube and Twitter are all being
effectively used in schools.
Links for you to explore and
reflect on -
Social
media services that can be use for learning and teaching:
Examples
of interesting practice from schools:
Research:
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