Hicks
(2013) blames our culture's negative aspects of social media for why teachers
are unable to use social media fluently. I also agree that I am leery of
using social media in my classroom. I have recently created Kidblog
accounts for my students. Although I know it is a private site, I am
still nervous about the content of what students post. It is like a time
bomb for drama waiting to go off. However, I also know that it is necessary
that we as teachers begin to give students opportunities to communicate
digitally in an age-appropriate, safe environment.
If we intend to model for students how to
craft writing for the purpose of posting to social media, it only makes sense
that we are involved in these types of online communities ourselves. Sharing our own online discussions with
students and focusing on the purpose of these discussions will bring to light
how communicating using social media can help us learn and share ideas with
others.
Below you will see a conversation that
took place between myself and my coworkers on a social media site.
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Hicks (2013) uses the MAPS heuristic (mode, media, audience, purpose, and situation) to
analyze texts. Edmodo is a great media for teachers to use to participate in closed discussion with
particular groups of professionals. I am
part of several online communities through Edmodo. The discussion above took place under my
school community. Teachers are able to
join and have discussions related to topics under review from our staff. For example, the conversation above was
prompted from a chapter of a book we were reading for a book study. We knew that we, the teachers at my school,
would be the only audience we would
have. This enabled us to discuss things
in the context of our classroom and our school in more open and candid manner
than we normally would. Because students will more than likely also be participating professionally through social media, I think it is key that we incorporate this kind of interaction into our classrooms on a consistent basis.
References:
Hicks, Troy (2013). Crafting digital writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteWe have just recently began to use Kidblog in our school. I love that it offers a safe environment for kids to blog without all of the negative influences/drama or outside interference. I love the fact that the teacher can preview responses before posting them. I agree that if we want our students to begin to craft writing for social media we must be responsible in showing them the correct way to craft purposeful writing.
I agree with your ideas on using it in a constructive manner to demonstrate how it should be used to your students. Hopefully this will turn into a positive project for you and it will benefit your classroom.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same anxiety when it comes to allowing my students to use social media. They are so many issues that can occur by using social media, but they are also a lot of positives. We do have to prepare them for the future and prepare them to be competitive in the professional world, so the training and exposure start in the classroom with us.
ReplyDelete