Blogs Do Teachers Need to get EDUCATED in Social Media?
Are Schools, and more specifically teachers, equipped to teach our children within the realm of all the social media? Or do our kids know more than the teachers?
I read one statistic that said more than 80% of schools block internet access to at least some social media sites. Isn’t that kinda like turning their backs on the very thing that they should be involved in? Furthermore, shouldn’t they then be utilizing these sites to engage their students better?
Instead of looking at the idea of using Social Media in the classroom as a negative, how about if schools and teachers started looking at it as a way to reach their students? A way that possibly these kids might actually enjoy learning?
Let’s face it, most kids think that the majority of their teachers are neither “with it:” (to use an old term) or have a clue! So what IF teachers were to get a bit more “clued in”?
When it comes to schools using social media, there are two main areas of discussion.
The first is that of communication; where social media is used as a tool for school administrators to communicate with parents, teachers, students and community members. In turn, these new online tools are also used as a way for parents, teachers, students and community members to voice their views and opinions back to school administrators and education officials.
The second area of discussion is that of education, where social media is taught and used in the classroom as a platform for sharing, learning, and growing.
The first area of concern (communication) is a no-brainer. Of course your school should be using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to keep in touch and communicate with the people in your “tribe”. Social media sites such as these are a great tool for school officials to have. The tools are free, easy to use, can be run by a single person within your organization, and best of all - your parents, teachers and students are already using these services.
The second issue (that of education), however, is a little trickier. It’s trickier because while social media tools like Facebook and Twitter are fairly straightforward when it comes to giving and receiving information, things get a whole lot messier once you start giving students these exact same tools and expecting them to handle them the way adults do.
I think social media curriculum in school becomes even more important at the high school level, when teens are thinking about the need for summer jobs and college.
Blogging in many companies is something that is expected now of its’ employees, so these students need to learn not only how to blog, but how to get their blogs seen.
So I am all for using Social Media in Schools.
Thoughts?
Original blog first appeared in http://lipsticknlaundry.com/
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