Activity Seven - Social Media

Original image from Education Council: http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz .
Edited with text boxes to show sites I use.

The Education council site states social media can be an effective tool for engagement and communication. The site that impacts most on my professional development is Facebook as I am a member of various professional development sites. It is the most accessible and it is easy to find education related posts. This enhances my knowledge by seeing what the current topics for NZ teachers are (NZ teachers group). I have gained insights into teaching practices and ideas for my classroom (literacy shed and writing book pages). Art and displays are an area I need to work on and some posts show me how I can develop these skills. I use pinterest as well to gain ideas and resources. As part of this Mindlab course I have been using Wikipedia and blogging to research and record my reflections.

In the classroom, some aspects benefit teaching and learning. I have introduced Google Drive to my class. They have been using the various apps and facilities to aid their learning. It has encouraged collaboration and links with home and school communities. Blogging is integrated in my class. It as a showcase of our learning for parents and the community. It is also used as a learning tool. As children became more confident we started quadblogging to see what other schools did. This led to them wanting individual blogs. Over the last six months they have been using these to show what they have been learning and commenting on each other's work with feedback and feed-forward.

One of the biggest challenges for the classroom has been moderating comments to make sure they are appropriate. At first I used the approval system on blogger. This helped but when children got their own blogs, the workload was too big. I worked with the children to encourage them to take responsibility for their own blogs and friends comments. 

An E-safety by the Australian government refers to risks of social networking as: "Anonymity, sharing too much information, not protecting your personal information and treating online friends as real friends." My school ran a cybersafety course based on Hector's world which tackled these issues. We discussed not sharing personal details. The key messages that the class took away was that comments last and to be careful signing up for sites. 

A Schoolzone report stated that teachers involved in the report thought social media is primary schools was not appropriate. However they feel it is necessary to demonstrate the importance of using social media safely and securely. As discussed above I believe social media does have a place in primary school but not all social media is appropriate, e.g. facebook for those under 13. Regarding demonstrating the importance of using social media safely, surely this is best done through active practice. If children are not using social media in schools, then it is very difficult to understand the risks. 

A personal challenge with social media is keeping a work-life balance. During the holidays there was a constant stream of messages from teachers. Checking Facebook late at night, posts from other teachers enter my feed seeking help or advice.  I found interesting posts that made me reflect on my practice and how I adopt the current discussion/idea into my practice at the same time realising that I was working again. I need to be mindful of how social media can blur my professional and personal life together too much and ensure that I do get the opportunity to 'wind down' and 'switch-off'.