Social Media in Education

 

 

Image Source

 

         Over this past year so far, I have really learned a lot more about social media and ways to use it in the classroom, as well as the benefits of incorporating it into instruction. I feel that social media does have a place in my classroom. I was inspired when I wrote my consent letter to parents about using Instagram in the classroom. Check out my letter here. In this letter, I shared ideas on how I could incorporate this social media into various subjects. In social studies, I shared that students could use this tool to pretend they are an historical figure. Since we're currently learning about Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher, and the positive behaviors he promoted, I decided that, by using Instagram, students could act as if they are Confucius taking pictures of positive-relationship interactions to demonstrate an understanding of the five relationships he encouraged.While I didn’t actually have my students use Instagram this week, since my 6th graders are under 13, I modified the assignment by having them use Storyboard That instead, but I still told them to pretend that they were Confucius sharing pictures on his "Instagram account." Even though Storyboard That isn’t a form of social media, this "social-media idea" inspired me to use technology for this assignment, and in the process, I learned about another online tool that my students really enjoy. I am still open to using Instagram, but I might consider using it if I teach older students in the future.

           I don’t know if I’d use Facebook and Twitter in my classroom as I don't feel as comfortable at the moment with how to implement. Additionally, I am unsure if my administration and technology coach would approve of them being used. Despite this, I’d be open to creating a blog, like Blogger, with my students in the same fashion that it is used for this class. I think it would be very engaging for my students, and it would allow us to continue or have conversations outside of school. Furthermore, I think Blogger is very easy to use, especially in regards to adding images to a blog post compared to some other tools like Weebly.com.

          In addition to Blogger, I would like to use YouTube more in the classroom. I often have the students watch short video clips from YouTube related to topics we're learning about in class. In order to engage them more in this site, I could have them create their own videos as well. Several of my students already create some of their own videos outside of school, so by using it in school, it would be an opportunity for them to use their technology skills to explain or learn more about a topic. 

 

          Lastly, I enjoyed spending more time exploring all the ideas for teachers that can be found on Pinterest.  Teachers have a lot of talents, and by sharing and learning from other teachers on Pinterest, I can gain great ideas to use in my classroom to help with class activities, as well as management and organizational ideas.

 

        Overall, these forms of technology are a part of many aspects of our society today. Children are growing up with them being the norm. With this in mind, it is important to realize that it is inevitable for them to become more and more a part of school. Therefore, I believe all educators need to be open to utilizing some of these forms of social media in their classrooms to take advantage of what they can do to help students learn.

 

Media Literacies-Rheingold

          Howard Rheingold is a 20/21st-century author who primarily focuses on analyzing the effects of social media consumption in the world. He wrote an article in 2010 entitled Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies in which he discusses the importance of 5 social media literacies: attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and critical consumption. Rheingold believes that students need to not only understand technology skills such as how to create a blog, but they need to understand these media literacies in order to effectively engage in learning. Upon discussing each of these literacies, he stresses that attention is the most important even though he further stresses that all of them connect with each other.

Image Source

         According to Rheingold, attention is very important since this is essentially the main way individuals learn, interact, and ultimately grow. In the 2010 article mentioned above, Rheingold states "[a]ttention is the fundamental building block for how individuals think, how humans create tools and teach each other to use them, how groups socialize, and how people transform civilizations." (2010, para. 4). Rheingold believes that students need to be aware of their attention and where it goes in order to know when they need to be more focused and when it is acceptable to switch and be attentive to something else.

         I agree that thinking about how we pay attention is important, especially since we're living in a world full of more technology distractions than before, and we need to make sure we're fully focusing on one thing rather than just shallowly taking in bits of information from all over. If we focus on something, we may understand that one thing better than if we looked at that for just a bit instead of getting distracted and looking at other things. For instance, as I am writing this blog post, I am also focusing on the television as well as being distracted by my phone by checking my e-mails and my Facebook account. In addition to all that, I am hungry and thinking about what I am going to make for breakfast. While it's human nature to get distracted, I think media distracts me the most as I am taking in a lot more information than if I were just sitting in my living room without access to those outlets.

        Despite feeling that attention is important, I find critical consumption to also be very important. I agree that students need to take classes regarding the topic of media literacy in order to be critical of the information that is all around them through media. I always stress to my students that they need to be critical of the resources they gather for a research report. They need to recognize credible sources by doing an investigation of the author, or by analyzing various sources to help distinguish between the facts versus the opinions.

          In addition to being critical of sources, students need to be aware that some of the images or information that they read may not be revealing the whole truth, or may be reworded to present the information in a certain way to people. I enjoyed viewing the information presented in the media literacy presentations this week. Some of those images were eye-opening, especially the image of the captured soldier receiving water on one side and having a gun held to his head on the other side. Depending on how the image is cropped can reveal different stories versus seeing the whole picture without crops or edits. I think this is a great example to share to show all people, not just students, that they need to question the information around them without just accepting it or jumping to conclusions.

      Media literacy is a very interesting topic, and I plan on delving more into it in order to be a more attentive and critical consumer of the technology world around me.

CIPA & COPPA

Image Source

         This week I learned about CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act) and COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). Both of these acts are intended to protect minors with online usage.
Upon reading about these laws, I find that they both serve a good purpose as it is very important to protect children online, especially in schools.

       In order to be compliant with CIPA, at my school, St. Francis Xavier in LaGrange, IL, we supervise students via DyKnow, a monitoring software, when students are using school devices. In addition to this, we educate the students on internet safety by teaching Digital Citizenship lessons through a curriculum established by Common Sense Media.

       Regarding COPPA, I talked with my school's technology coach about it, and she said that the main reason why she tells staff to wait when they want to use a new app or online feature is because she wants to investigate if using that feature complies with COPPA. Earlier in the year, I wanted to use Screencastify with my 6th graders. Looking back on this, I remember she told me that we had to buy a license in order to be compliant with COPPA. At the time, I didn't know much about this law, but now I understand what she meant by this. My 6th graders are under 13, so we couldn't use the free version.

    Overall, I think these laws are fine. I think they do what they can to protect children, and it's better to have them than to not have anything at all. I think online safety can be complicated, especially as new things come out. While it's important for schools to educate students with online safety, the main individuals who need to be involved in ensuring children understand the importance of online safety are the children's parents. I remember being 10-11 years ago back in 1998 and my mother having a conversation with me about the internet. Her words stayed with me and definitely stressed the importance that the internet isn't a toy and that I need to be careful with who I communicate with and with what I search for. As I stated, these laws and schools can do what they can to protect children, but I believe it's the main responsibility of parents to protect their children, especially in the gray areas of personal phone usage, etc.

    It was brought to my school's attention this week that many middle-school students have been participating in several Instagram accounts. Apparently one of these accounts takes pictures of students and staff and shows fictitious relationships. My principal wrote an e-mail to families regarding this situation and stressed that the school will investigate and monitor on our part, but that we need families to do the same by stressing the importance to the children of being good digital citizens and by monitoring their children's usage of social media.

Image Source

       Furthermore, I think 13 is a proper age to target. They chose that because it's roughly the first age of high school. I know individuals could lie about their age, but that shouldn't be happening in elementary schools, and if it is happening with children and their personal devices, that's where I'm further emphasizing that parents need monitor those devices. If they're going to allow their children to use those devices, they need to make sure they're using them appropriately and complying with the law.

Data Analysis: Social Media

Social Media Data Analysis

Image Source

    Out of all my social media sites, I am most active on Facebook. I have had an account for over 10 years now, and I use it for personal reasons only. I don't really write posts, or statuses anymore, but I do share pictures, memes that I find hilarious, and recipes from Food Network or Delish since I follow those groups.

      I used to write statuses when I first got Facebook in college because it seemed like the thing to do. Now, I think some statuses sound silly sometimes because I think they can come off as showing off a bit, or they can sound a little cheesy and fake. Sometimes people write long posts about how they couldn't live without so-and-so, etc. While this might be very heartfelt and truthful, sometimes I wonder if it's just to boast. I also don't want to express opinions on Facebook, especially related to politics, as I think the conversations can get too heated since people feel more courage to say things online, but then things can get awkward when they see those people in person after having an online argument. Since I'm friends with colleagues and other acquaintances, I'd rather not have things get awkward between us like that. Isn't there some understood rule that you shouldn't talk politics in social situations? Stick to talking about the weather and food...

      Of my last 25 posts on Facebook, 14 of them were pictures that I posted or was tagged in. I do enjoy posting some pictures, and my most recent ones involved images from holidays, trips I went on with family and friends, and weddings I attended. Sometimes I say something clever about the picture when I post, or I don't say anything at all, but I just post the pictures. I do hesitate sometimes to share some pictures as I think pictures too can seem like showing off. I don't want people to feel bad if I was hanging out with certain people and I didn't invite them. I think constantly seeing what others are doing can affect people.  Sometimes it can be overwhelming to go online and see images of friends traveling all over, having babies, getting new jobs, etc. While all of those things are good and should be celebrated, I think a competition among friends starts to develop online with people posting things in order to receive attention and to one up others. People may also internally feel that their life is not as exciting as their friends. I think to a degree, some of the pictures I posted have been to impress people, and there is a part of me that feels guilty about this. I posted a picture of my living room on Facebook to show people my Christmas decorations of my new tree by my fireplace. I also was stuck in Florida last week (poor me, I know) because my flight was canceled, and I posted a picture stating I was in Disney World by the castle while everyone back home was freezing.

Personal Photo

       In addition to pictures, I share memes that I find amusing. In the video image below, I was tagged in the meme video. Most of the memes I post relate to teaching, or ones that connect well with me and my personality. My co-workers and I share these with each other for our own enjoyment. I also like and share a lot recipes. Following groups like the Food Network and Delish help me get great and simple ideas for dinner!

Personal Photo

Check out the actual video of the image above here. It's hilarious, and totally true for teachers!

Here's a recent recipe I liked from Delish:

 Yum!

Personal Photo

     Overall, my posts are mostly all positive on Facebook. I feel that they do reflect the real me by representing things I like and my sense of humor. If I had done this analysis of Facebook 10 years ago, my answer may have been different. Not that I was negative in the past, but maybe I was sharing and saying things just to fit in more. Now that I am older, I have evolved in my Facebook usage. While I post some pictures, I don't post all my pictures as I'm more cautious of not overdoing it, or giving away too much information about where I am and what I'm doing. I'm more mindful of other people's feelings, and thinking that maybe no one really cares that I'm having a romantic dinner with my husband. I'm more of an adult on Facebook now---poking fun at the craziness of being a teacher and figuring out what to eat for dinner!

Statistic Research Blog: Homework Gap

Project Tomorrow's Speak Up
I came across one of Project Tomorrow's Speak Up reports entitled How America's Schools are Addressing the Homework Gap: Speak Up 2017 Findings May 2018. Upon reading the statistics on the report, I found myself connecting to it, especially after the week I had. (I'll tell you about it in a minute.) The report discusses and provides evidence about how there are some students who are not completing digital assignments since some families do not have access to the internet outside of school. This situation is called "digital divide." Another issue called the "homework gap" is that the quality of their internet access is not very good which makes it challenging to do work.

According to some statistics from the report, which can be seen below, almost 50% of principals say that a major challenge today is trying to guarantee student access to technology tools outside of school. Additionally, 13% of middle school through high school students say that they cannot complete homework because of not having access to the internet. Furthermore, about half of teachers want to be more reassured that students have access to technology resources in order to incorporate technology in their instruction.

Image Source

Even if 13% of students does not seem like a lot, I still find it significant. This report really struck me this week because since I was out-of-town for part of the week, I assigned digital assignments for my students to complete via Google Classroom while a sub was present in my room. In addition, with several snow days this week due to the cold weather, my principal told all homeroom teachers to assign work through Google Classroom during the snow days to see if we could use those as instructional days in order to not have to make-up any days in June. My students each have their own Chromebooks which is an advantage. However, when I was finally back at school with my students, I had to deal with issues that some students were not able to complete their work because of different internet issues students were experiencing at home, especially during the snow days. I received some parent e-mails confirming this. Part of me feels that some individuals are using this as an excuse to have an extension on some work, but, I do nevertheless believe some of these cases are legitimate. My question is, at what point do we stop excusing some of these instances? While some work could be done using traditional means, other assignments online can be more challenging to make traditional. I guess teachers will just have to deal with this on a case-by-case basis. Even with 5 students not having work complete, it can slow down moving forward with further instruction since teachers have to deal with catching some students up.

Image Source

Also, as the report points out in the caption above, technology leaders predict an increase in online instructional approaches in 2019. With this being the case, how can administrators and teachers make sure students are able to complete work outside of school? Below are some ways that schools are addressing this situation. One that really struck me below is where schools are discouraging homework that is digital or online. To me, 41% is a high number of schools doing this. I guess in a sense I see myself and some of my colleagues shying away from digital homework so as not to deal with this problem. I tried to take advantage of digital work this week since it was convenient for me considering my situation, but I found myself overwhelmed with trying to see what everyone was able to accomplish.

Image Source

Overall, maybe this is a problem that will resolve itself as instruction becomes more and more digital. While schools can do what they can to help students with this situation, maybe it's up to the families and students to figure out ways to get access to the internet in order to make sure they're completing work. If they want to succeed, they'll need to be creative with solving this problem like utilizing resources at a public library or coming in to school early or staying after. I just found this to be an interesting topic to discuss with others in education. What are your  thoughts?