Social connectedness teaching strategy

Elke Schneider QSITE 2015 presentationhttps://elketeaches.wordpress.com/qsite/@elketeaches

What is social connectedness?

• How people come together and interact

• Family, friends, acquaintances, outside of your social circle

• Social connectedness helps create social capital, increases feelings of belonging and can be a source of enjoyment and support

Teens and social media

• Digital communication• Connect with friends• Seek public life• Gain a sense of self• Self-presentation management

*plenty of critics: parents, educators, media & general society

*this does NOT mean that student naturally know how to use social media in an effective way for education

An argument for teaching social media & digital citizenship at school

- a tool for a digital social connectedness teaching strategy

https://elketeaches.wordpress.com/qsite/

https://schneiderlessons.edublogs.org

http://sampai.edublogs.org/

http://jthom466.edublogs.org/

http://danielhelman.edublogs.org/

http://dougijr.edublogs.org/

http://sirscrubvgc.edublogs.org/

Benefits for teachers

• Authentic – links to teenagers’ lives & future work• Empowered students – student in centre of learning• Timely feedback• Build on student-teacher relationships• Extend high achieving students• Literacy skills• Creative & critical thinking skills• Reflective skills• Flipped-classroom• Inquiry-driven teaching & learning• Digital collaboration• ICT skills

Digital literacyIt’s not just about how to use a computer!

• Making meaning of a range of digital media

• Finding context, locating information

• Visual – images, videos, animation, games

• Critical analysis of digital media – detecting bias, evaluating information

• Create information, digital manipulation

• Digital communication, digital citizenship

Links to the Australian Curriculum

Recommendations

• Advocate for social media use in education

• Use Edublogs

• School-wide adoption of Edublogs CampusPress

– global2.vic.edu.au blog network for all schools in Victoria

– Parklands School Division in Canada http://www.psdblogs.ca/

– St Stephen’s School in Western Australiahttp://blogs.ststephens.wa.edu.au/

Photo by Laura Smith https://www.flickr.com/photos/blushingmulberry/5060079536/

Further recommendations

• Teach youth how to code and develop websites, apps, games, animation and other digital media

–When people know the architecture or code of how technology and media work, then they are better able to analyse digital media and create digital technologies.

A picture can say a 1000 words

Or, a picture can be fake! A good reason to teach students about the architecture/technology behind what they read, use or see

Future of work is changing

• Edublogs is a tool you can use to engage teenagers in learning by leveraging their need for social connectedness.

• ICT skills, literacy, creativity, critical thinking skills, ethical considerations and more can be linked to the use of Edublogs in teaching.

Job transformations Globalisation

Technology Digital skills required