BEING SOCIAL: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CAN TRANSFORM YOUR SCHOOL CLASSROOMS
2/5/2013 By: By Cathy Swan
Most T&L readers know the value of social
media learning in schools, yet many remain
bound by restrictive policies and reluctance
from their school communities to embrace
these tools. A 2012 EdWeb survey on Web 2.0
tools by MMS Education and MCH Strategic
Data revealed that just 7% of educators say
they use social networks in the classroom.
|Educators are separating personal and professional social networking
|From A Survey of K-12 Educators on Social Networking, Online Communities, and Web 2.0 Tools 2012, conducted by MMS Education and sponsored by edWeb.net and MCH Strategic Data.
How can we change the minds of more
educators? Demonstrating best practices
can often be the best publicity tool for social
media. We can effectively use best practices to
show how these tools can be transformative
and foster creative student collaboration on a
global scale. Here are 12 ideas you can share
with your educators, administrators, and
parents to show just how students can benefit
from social networking.
1. COLLABORATE WITH GOOGLE APPS FOR EDUCATION.
Students learn to work as a team by
creating and sharing documents, slide sets,
spreadsheets, drawings, Web sites, maps,
blogs, and more. You can use the Revision
History feature to allow team members
and teachers to track how each student
contributed to a specific project. The
Comments function enables peer review
and teacher input. You can also invite other
classes, grades, and schools to participate
and allow your students to get real-world
experience by collaborating with invisible
partners. Our America at War and World
Interactions projects involve multiple sections
of students working together to document
our nation’s history of war and the rise and
expansion of world religions.
2. ESTABLISH AN ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM.
You can start by using apps such as Moodle,
Schoology, Edmodo, ePals Learning Space,
or MyBigCampus. These apps are safe and
secure for students of all ages. Each app offers
various levels of permissions and protections
that permit districts to adjust the content for
each grade level. Teachers can create discussion
boards, blogs, surveys, forums, and activities for
each class or browse the greater community for
collaborators around the world.
3. GIVE STUDENTS A VOICE WITH VOICETHREAD.
Create a reading list on Voicethread for your
school library where students can record their
thoughts on books they’ve read or suggest books
to be added. World Language teachers can also
invite students to record responses to an image,
listen to their recordings, and respond to all the
4. BECOME PART OF HISTORY WITH TWITTER: WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD AROUND YOU?
Put a hashtag in front of a buzzword to
see what’s happening in the twittersphere. In
February 2012, Twitter played a key role in
the uprisings in the Middle East. Our students
searched hashtags such as #Egypt to identify
tweets with links to reliable sources. Many
students were able to retweet what they found
to news aggregation apps like Paper.li to create
a constantly updated newspaper. Students
knew what happened before it hit the evening
news. You can also encourage your students to
create a hashtag for your class to use Twitter as
a backchannel, chatroom, or discussion thread
where kids can post discoveries, reflections, and
questions. Another neat idea is to ask students
to tweet a novel. The 140-character limit forces
students to use concise thinking and succinct
5. CONNECT WITH GLOBAL CLASSROOMS THROUGH EPALS.
This global community is free and
accessible to students of all ages. Select a
language and a student age group to connect
with a class in one of 200 countries through
Skype, video, or email.
|Are you currently a member of, or have you ever joined, a social networking website for personal, educational, or professional reasons?
6. REVOLUTIONIZE RESEARCH WITH DIIGO SOCIAL BOOKMARKING.
Teams of students can collaborate as they
research, share bookmarks and resources, and add sticky notes and comments. Diigo
Educators’