I have always known that social media is in society and it is not going away. We will from now on be connected if we choose to be. My trouble and scare has always been connecting my students in a safe way. Every week my EC 831 class teaches me something more about how social media can be much more beneficial to students’ learning then a detriment. After reading “A Guide to Social Media” on Edutopia, I feel like I am not doing enough to prepare my students for the future. The last lines of the article are “Social media is here. It’s just another resource and doesn’t have to be a distraction from learning objectives. Social media is another tool that you can use to make your classroom more engaging, relevant and culturally diverse.” I am just realizing how true and powerful this statement really is. Social media can be an incredible tool to allow our students to socialize and learn while at school. It is such an engaging tool that teacher could and should be using to their advantage. It is no different then students talking while they do their work, which is not always a bad thing. After all our future is not about who knows the most it is who can connect the best and use the resources they have. So my question is now how do I start? and where do I start?
Image found Creative Commons
After reading How to Snapchat like a Teen and watching the video Snapchat Murders Facebook, Snapchat seems to be the new platform of communication with teens. Is there a way students could use this to express their learnings everyday? Could a class have a snapchat account and put a story up everyday about different things they experiences, learned and explore? Could this be an easy way to answer the question from parents “So what did you do today at school?” I feel like this could be an engaging way to have students share their knowledge. One of the problems is it disappears. Is that a good thing? The hoarder in me would want to save all the videos and pictures. Is that defeating the purpose?
Whether I end up using snapchat or a different platform for my students I would love for them to be digitally literate.