Journal 3

The Case for Social Media in Schools

“Don’t fight a losing battle,” says Delmatoff  As teachers, we ought to take advantage of the fact that we can facilitate our students’’ usage of social media. Using social media in the classroom is a perfect opportunity to talk about what is right and wrong.  Use it as a talking point.  (This is what we do as parents, right?)

I also agree that there is a lot of power in this statement, “Blogging was a way to get students into that mode where, 'Hey, I’m writing this not just for an assignment, not just for a teacher, but my friend will see it and maybe even other people [will] stumble across it,” especially for the tween group.  Students care most about what their peers think at this age, and knowing that there work is up there for peer review may be extra incentive to do their best work.  I would imagine that if they can access their blogs at home, students would come back to their work more often to improve it.   In fact, students can collaborate much more easily from their homes using a social media sight. In addition, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs is very motivating to practice reading and writing skills in a natural context.

I do feel strongly that teachers should use self -contained sights such as Edmodo to control the external influences.  Given all of the benefits, and the fact that social media isn’t going anywhere, I think that we should take full advantage of the educational possibilities.  

What additional benefits do you see in the case of using social media? 

Additional benefits include offering a mode of communication to those who may too shy to speak out in class, as well as offering everyone an equal chance to voice their point of view.  Also, there is an automatic record of student participation, this has always been hard to document as a teacher.  For example, if students are contributing to a literature discussion, there is a record of the discussion and the participation of the contributors.   

Do you use social media in the classroom?

No, I don't currently use social media with my Kindergarteners and First graders.  I may begin to be able to as the first graders become more strong in their reading and writing skills.  I'd be interested in ideas for this grade level.  Having taught upper grades as well. I definitely see ways that I would incorporated social media into our work, such as in the literature circle example I mentioned above.