Social Networking: Society in Virtual Evolution |
Impacting student achievement has been a much heated debate for 21st century educators. Do we need additional assessments? Or should we group the under achievers with the over achievers? And how does one really effectively collaborate? In a classroom of thirty-five students with reading abilities ranging from non readers, poor readers, slow readers, graphic novel readers to novel readers, one thing is for sure, adequately meeting all educational needs can be a bit daunting. Now more than ever, teaching can be a work of disinterested art if you do not have a few instructional tools strapped around your ever expanding common core belt. To add a little more fuel to the fire, students, many of which are performing below grade level, can be found rapidly pounding their thumbs to surf the internet, blog, bump, tweet, instagram, or discharge a mass text. Where does education fit in this social networking puzzle?
 Is this the new condoms-in-the-school debate? Or is it as anticlimatic as legalizing marijuana?I mean nothing really happened...Many schools were afraid to get involved when the ever expanding role of educators included distributing birth control contraceptives at the school. Won't that entice students to have sex? The same argument could be said for legalizing marijuana. Won't that entice individuals to use drugs? Well, it seems regardless of the content, if individuals are already up to something, we might as well add some guidance and parameters to the equation.The just-say-no campaign does not really work in this arena; individuals are already engaging in this legal activity: social networking. In the article Jordan Davis: How Social Networks Help Students, senior Jordan Davis shares that many schools, which include social networking as part of their school routine, witness attendance rates soaring and grades improving socialnetworking. Classrooms use this form of communication to allow students to post reactions on websites using blogs or classroom wikis. In fact, the ICT Advisors provide 10 useful tools one single device can add to a classroom:
In short, I am a big proponent of social networking; it keeps me in the loop with my students learning habits as well as technological shortcomings. Besides, I don't have to carry around bundles of ungraded work. I can just slip my cellphone in my back pocket. I have dedicated email account for students and parents, and Edmodo is installed on my cellphone. To be perfectly honest, if I don't turn my phone off at night, it will beep incessantly. With what, you might ask? Students, yes that wireless sleepless bunch submits work through all hours of the night-including weekends. Lol smh... |
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Social Networking
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I’m right with you. I have no qualms about social networking. As I was saying in a previous post, my son had an issue with posting an inappropriate word on a social network. He did not realize that everyone could see the word. We both had to educate ourselves a little more. Boundaries were then set and we have had no problems since. I also repeat over and over that these are the times we live in and we have to stay up with them (in the “loop”). How else are we going to keep student’s interest and willingness to learn alive and active? I don’t like to think of social media as a distraction to students rather I like to see it as a tool. Once students learn how to use the tools they can achieve far more than expected. The school my son attends and the school I do my volunteer field experience in uses Edmodo also. Both the students and teachers love it. Great post BTW!
ReplyDeleteI do not see the value of a social network in education. I know that it can be used as an educational tool, but I think the possibilities for adverse outcomes far outweigh the need to include this format in education. Would I accept the school having a social network site? Absolutely! However, I do not support teachers using a social network site to communicate with students, nor will I support homework assignments that need to be completed by accessing the teacher's social network site.
ReplyDeleteSocial media has been (and will probably be for a long time) a controversial and touchy topic in general, so I can see how it can have a bad reputation in the education field. Interestingly enough, the college library where I work even blocks access to Facebook and other social media sites and our students are adults. Where I can see how sites such as Facebook are meant for more personal use and don't really have much educational value, it's the sites like Edmodo, which are modeled after Facebook and other social media sites, that have potential educative value. I see it as a way to take a technology that students and parents are comfortable using and adapt its use to suit educational needs. It allows for safe collaboration and teaches students essential technology skills. You also mention the portability of such technologies as being a bonus for you as an educator and I could not agree more. I think that aspect is also appealing to students and parents, many of whom have busy lives that require them to occasionally pull up a homework assignment or ask a quick question from a cell phone or other mobile device.
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