Is there a place for social media in education?

With the major advances in technology in the last decade, as do the many online platforms and applications. There are a ridiculous amount of social platforms available on smart devices, many of which are similar when it comes to operating them and the purpose they hold. Social media has revolutionized the rate at which news is exposed. When anything happens whether it be catastrophic or minor, social media is the first to receive news. This is due to the fact that some many people have easy access to these social media platforms and post directly after or as this are happening. The massive debate however is whether or not these platforms should be used in the classroom as yet another teaching tool. In all honesty I completely disagree with “Provenzano, 2015” where he states that he uses some of the bigger platforms to teach (i.e. Twitter and Instagram). Due to the fact that half of the learners you teach probably are already active on these forms of media, I feel that to constructively educate learners via these platforms will be tricky. I feel that being a past learner myself not so long ago, I would definitely sit in class and use the social media platforms for my own personal use rather than participate in class time agenda. However, I do feel that as I said earlier there are plenty of online applications and sources of media that were specifically created for educational purposes. I do agree that as teachers we should use some sort of online social media to communicate and interact with learners as learners often enjoy and are comfortable using technology and online media. I do feel that there is a place for social media in classrooms due to the fact that it can be advantageous to see whether learners are keeping up to date with work and allows them to ask questions they might have been too scared to ask in class. This does however need to be carefully monitored as have said several times in my previous blog posts. Things like Cyberbullying is a reality in this dane age and it can be even worse due to the fact that almost everyone has access to posts online. 

The Power of Pedagogy

I thoroughly enjoyed reading both “Decoding Digital Pedagogy” parts as it sparked ideas and foresight in my mind. I was left last night pondering over a glass of whiskey whether or not effective pedagogy techniques actually exist in schools today? It is made obvious in the articles that Sean Morris believes that digital pedagogy over rules and dominates the LMS (Learning Management System). I agree with Morris in saying that the LMSs are “limiting structures” as he describes. Kids and young learners nowadays are accustomed to the use of technology and using the internet, so why not give these learners the opportunity to utilize this comfort they have with technology in order to advance learning both in and outside the classroom. If one simply looks at the issues our fellow students at other Universities are facing, I believe that online courses and online teaching would greatly benefit learners at times like these when students are being prevented from attending class and as a result will suffer academically. I think that online teaching is a topic which should be highly considered in Educational establishments worldwide. This is also a realistic proposition due to the fact technology and media is advancing at an unbelievable rate and will facilitate online teaching often making it effortless. I dream of a future where a student will be able to attend and participate in a lecture by simply signing in or live streaming it in the comfort of his own home. This will give students an opportunity to catch up on lectures which they may have missed for any given reason and benefit from the available online content which can be made available. Another advantage of online teaching which is briefly touched on in the article is that the material provided to learners can be used over and over again which will not only give the course consistency but also continuous quality. Material can as a result also be adapted or changed over time. After wondering for a long time over whether or not digital learning would poison or better learning experiences, I truly believe that digital pedagogy is the way forward and upwards in education. At first I was very against it however I do feel that it is a practice which needs to be carefully controlled. The internet is a dark place and the worst thing that could happen is to have learners lose the plot when it comes to learning outside of the school premises.  

Digital Pedagogy, the good, the bad and the ugly. What will its future hold for us?

The Bad apple of Digital pedagogy 

 

If we were asked what the perfect classroom would have been like 10 years ago, what would our answers have been? We might have said wooden chairs, desks that could open and store textbooks and pencil cases in, a chalkboard of course and maybe a computer. Now today however, we think of classrooms based on smartboards, textbooks electronically stored on Ipad’s and Laptops and Libraries that no longer contain encyclopaedias but rather computers with google search engines. The world is rapidly changing as technology advances and so too is the education system. The debate however is whether technology-based teaching is advantageous or whether the touch of a button might be detrimental to children’s learning. I am not going to lie but I did not really understand much from the Paul Fyfe; 2011 article “Digital Pedagogy Unplugged” but I did however draw my own conclusions based on what I did understand from the text.

Technology is creating an environment for students to learn while ideally having fun in class. For many children, the advancement of technology is as fascinating in the classroom as it is outside. With the advancement of technology, students are able to access more information from a number of different sources during a shorter period of time, whereas in the past much learning was centred on a single textbook. Specialised internet devices also allow students to advance and learn at a pace subjective to their own abilities. Online learning games also provide an environment with which children can interact in a whole new way inside the classroom while at the same time assisting teachers in new and innovative ways of educating learners. Studies have shown that a lot of learners absorb information a lot better when engaging in activities rather than just listening or watching. 

The counter to this particular argument however is that with information at the touch of a finger, comes responsibility. With unlimited access to information, comes the obligation of teachers to ensure that children are not exposed to material they are not mature enough to handle. And how exactly are teachers supposed to protect children from some of the unruly more taboo things on the internet? Some of these disruptive aspects include cyber bullying. Children are now even more exposed to the social world where manipulation and victimisation can be extremely harmful. I also strongly believe that social media, through technology greatly damages person to person interaction. Society today is often so caught up on what is present on the web, or social dating sites that they can’t hold a conversation with living beings in front of them.

I believe that the world outside the classroom is developing at a rapid rate and that in order for children to cope outside the classroom, or after school, the necessary digital skills need to be taught as a foundation. However technology in education needs to be strictly and very carefully monitored as the potential risk causing damage to a child’s psych is far greater than the risks of bad textbooks. The human mind is an extraordinaire, an entity that I believe has never fully been tapped into by anyone yet, and that as technology develops, it can either create the opportunity to push our minds to their limits or create beings that cannot think for ourselves but rely on computers. I agree with the use of technology in education so long as its advancement parallels with our own developments.