why this resistance? - s3.classmill.coms3.classmill.com/modules/files/xbe/content-94cc.pdf · also...

In this ebook, we have analyzed the impact of Social Media on the education sector while

also empathizing with educators on their resistance to the use of it in the classroom. We will

then look at few classic real classroom examples of how teachers, students and

administrators are harnessing social media to create a better learning environment and

reforming public education.

In most of the industries, social media is seen as a key driver of communication & marketing.

If we talk about the education, universities, colleges & schools are striving hard to build a good

social presence. Students want to get a feel of what the institution is really like from their

Facebook page. That’s why every educational institution wants to be seen in ‘The Great College

Search’ on the internet. So currently, educators are using Social Media to maximize student

enrollments, alumni engagement and increasing media outreach.

In 2012-13, The US department of Commerce ranked 55 industry sectors for their IT

intensiveness, education ranked lowest (below coal mining). Education industry that bears the

responsibility to prepare children for the world of tomorrow, itself is not ready to embrace the

digital revolution with an open mind.

We’re not talking about the number of machines lying in your computer lab or iPads in the

classroom. We’re talking about the motivation behind having these machines - digital education

in true sense.

Let’s open up our vision from seeing social media as just another distraction to seeing it as an

opportunity to build a more meaningful education system for teachers and students.

FEDENA | Social Media Guide for Educators 1

http://www.fedena.com/?utm_source=ebook&utm_medium=footer&utm_campaign=SocialGuide

We humans have a whole history of being resistant to changes:

Why this resistance?

If you’re an educator, let us take you back to your early days when you were a student. Learning in

schools was about daily lectures on various subjects and topics; and students using their textbooks as

their only source of knowledge. You had no Google or any social media website like Youtube, Twitter,

Wikipedia etc to help if you didn’t understand a lesson given by the class teacher. The only alternate to

a school teacher was home tutions but that used to take away precious hours from the time that we

could’ve put in the things we truly loved, such as playing football, music, dancing and doing things that

every kid or teenager wants to do in this age.

It’s this learning background why today, many of us as educators are resistant to Social Media and

failing to adopt to the new ways of education. The students of the Internet generation don’t have the

same constraints we had back then.



Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson on how to reform public education system

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Respect

Many schools ask their teachers to avoid friending their students on Facebook. Sometimes the

assumptions of stereotype educators about young teenage students using social media get in

their way. May be unintentionally, but some educators are posing a complex social conflict for

students.

Many of us might believe that social media is a place where students impulsively reveal their

private lives for the world to see. It’s not true. Recent survey done by Facebook reveals that the

new youth is deliberate about what they post. Any impression they leave on their social

network is deliberate.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U


You can compare it with how students use their clothing, hairstyle, shoes etc to leave a

particular impression on the people around them. Similarly, they use social media to share

things to enhance that image.

If educators don’t pay respect to the new ways of expression of youth, they will remain

defensive and less likely engaging with their teachers on social media.

Indeed there are some real risks attached with children using social media and it can’t be taken

lightly. But there are also dangers in crossing a road. Do we tell our kids not to cross the road?

No, we don’t! We hold their hand and tell them how to do it.

Teens should be told about what is appropriate in communication on social media. Parents and

teachers should teach them about privacy settings, how world outside may interpret certain

content.

They need to be told that their profile and album pictures need to be acceptable, without a

teacher having to intervene.

Educators must show teens a level of respect as they create their space online to express

themselves as individual. If you are connected with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or

any other social media channel, show them the same respect that you would in public

situations. This is not the place to correct their language or remind them to finish their

assignments. Last thing you want to do is berate them in front of their friends on a social

networking site. Try to understand their world.

For many of us, our online life and offline life are different. It’s hard for us to adopt to this new

Social Media ideology because we were born and brought-up in a completely offline

environment.



On the other hand, Social media for teens is an extension of their lives - a medium of

expression which we adult educators didn’t have in their age.

Most teens are self vigilant about their privacy

http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/ According to a 2013 Pew Research Center study, teens are taking steps to protect their privacy. The survey finds:

● 60% of teen Facebook users set their Facebook profiles to private and most report high levels of confidence in their ability to manage their settings.

● 89% of teens say managing their Facebook privacy settings is ‘not difficult at all’ or ‘not too difficult’. ● Students are cognizant of their online reputations, and take steps to curate the content and

appearance of their social media presence.

Critical thinking

As educators, one of the best pieces of advice you can give to students regarding use of social

media is to ‘think’ before they post. Encourage them to review their privacy settings. If they

post anything they later regret, they should apologize to the recipient and offer to make

amends. It’s quite similar to how parents tell their children how they should behave in public.

Power of Reasoning

What is the most important instrument of any learner? It’s the power to ask questions. These

questions are born from real life experiences - when students apply the acquired knowledge in

their daily lives.

Using social media as an expression medium is one of the steps that we as educators need to

take. The future of education is in helping children experience curiosity, wonder, and joy

through playful learning.

Take a look at the following 4 minutes video. It’s a collection of VINE looping videos (all under 6

seconds) created by teachers and students using Vine to demonstrate various lessons of

science.


http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNdBHmZAOr4&list=PLvzOwE5lWqhSE_3v46YFBxnfuZ2qHBAXH&

index=1

How many science lessons does this 4 minutes video pops in your brain? Does this video make

you curious to learn more? You bet, it does. This is what Social Media can do. It can make

education fun, interactive and collaborative.

In our time, we didn’t have access to many people to whom we could ask questions or share

our experiences with. With social media, there are more exciting ways to ask questions than

anytime in the history.

The new generation of students

The students of today are big communicators through emails, social media and instant

messaging. They are more connected to the outside world than how much we were at their

age. If they have a question today, they will not wait for another day to go to the school and ask

teacher. They will access the information on their smartphone in a matter of few seconds. No


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNdBHmZAOr4&list=PLvzOwE5lWqhSE_3v46YFBxnfuZ2qHBAXH&index=1




matter where the student lives, he/she has access to the best teachers of the world. Social

Media has bridged the gap between students and the highest quality study material they need

for learning.

The revolution is already happening

If you’re among those institutions that don’t allow use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc in

the classroom, here is a reality check. The moment, students of your institution step out of your

institution premise, they are exposed to a much more stimulating learning experience than

what they had in your brick and mortar location.

So irrespective of whether or not you as an institution are ready to embrace the new digital

ways of teaching, the revolution is already happening. If educators are left behind on social

media, they will also fail in the simple role of being cultivators of curiosity.

Shifting role of educators

A modern school needs to be a lot more than brick and mortar of studies. The unique

advantage of being ‘source’ of education is gone. Quality or Quantity of educational content

can no longer be benchmark of quality of education for a school; high quality educational

content everywhere on the Internet.

For example - it’s no more the responsibility of school to make a student memorize birthday of

Martin Luther King. This information is everywhere on the Internet. A student can get this

information using Google on smartphone in a matter of a seconds. The role of teachers comes

into play when there is something that a student can’t find and understand using mobile device

in less than 2 minutes.

Thus, the role of school has shifted from being the source of knowledge to the validator &

applier of knowledge.



The principal at Stephens Elementary in Burlington, KY, announcing that the school would be closed on

Monday because of snow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUtPG2J5RwQ

As an institution, Vanderbilt has been an early and eager adopter of social media. These tools enable

the university to share what is happening on campus with the world, but more importantly let us hear

directly and immediately from students, faculty, staff, parents, fans and friends about what is

important to them. This “conversation” is what makes social media so different from traditional forms

of institutional communication. - Vanderbilt university on Social Media

Do you know that a lecture that you think will be good for the whole class might actually be

useful to only 20% of the class. The new generation teachers need to have access to the data

about where the students are having problems in understanding the lectures. Teachers also

need to know their own areas of improvement. The classroom experience for the students

needs to be made more targeted.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUtPG2J5RwQ


Applying Social Media to Education

The first step towards applying social media into education starts with empowering teachers by

giving them freedom to use social media to engage with students and giving them the freedom

to come-up with innovative ways of teaching using technology.

On the contrary, let’s talk about few practical ways on how many educators apply social media

to flip the conventional teaching model and make classroom & home work experience

meaningful to for the students.



1) YOUTUBE

The average teacher impacts about 3,000 students in his or her lifetime. Imagine what could happen

when you inspire 3,000 individuals or perhaps 300,000 students. How? With Youtube!

Ask your students what they would prefer - Lectures of their teachers teaching them in the real

classroom, or Videos of the same lectures on their computers, Macs, iPads or Smartphone

devices. Like it or not - students would prefer their teachers more in a video than in person.

Because they have better control on their lecture (and the teacher) when it’s a video. They

can’t rewind a teacher 10 times in the classroom, they can’t pause the lecture in a real

classroom to get a cup of coffee. It’s embarrassing for a student to interrupt a teacher in a real

class and ask to repeat because he/she didn’t understand.

This brings us to the most fundamental problems with the conventional way of teaching - there

is a ‘limit’ to the number of times a student can make a teacher repeat the lecture. Because of

which - at the end of term, there is a half baked student with low grades advancing to the next

level, in spite the intent to learn and master the topic.

While watching a teacher give lecture in a video on the other hand, student wouldn’t need to

pretend that they have understood. They can go back and watch the lecture again in the

comfort of their home.

If you as an institution are confident about the teaching skills of your teachers, you should

record the lectures of your teachers and share it with the world with the help of Youtube.

…I give you a lecture [on cycling] ahead of time, and I give you a bicycle for two weeks, and then I

come back after two weeks, and I say “Well, you’re having trouble taking left turns and you can’t quite

stop. You’re an 80% bicyclist.” So I put a ‘C’ stamp on your forehead, and then I say, ‘Here’s a

unicycle.’”

- Salman Khan, Khan Academy



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NegRGfGYOwQ

Sign up for YouTube for Schools to bring the power of video to your classrooms for free. It lets your

students access thousands of free high quality educational videos on YouTube in a controlled

environment. http://www.youtube.com/schools

http://www.youtube.com/education


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NegRGfGYOwQ

http://www.youtube.com/schools

http://www.youtube.com/education


2) FACEBOOK

http://vimeo.com/68735668

When people are accountable for their actions, they are more likely to behave well and treat each

other with respect.

Facebook is based on real names and authentic identities That’s the reason why Facebook is

not only the most popular but also the safest social network for young students. It requires that

its registered users represent who they are in the real world. It’s the most basic safety tool of

Facebook. On Facebook, the connections are real and authentic. If anyone discovers a user

posing as someone else, they can report it to Facebook.

There are three major types of accounts on Facebook: pages, groups, and profiles. Profiles are

designed for individuals, so we recommend that organizations use either pages or groups to

maintain a Facebook presence.


http://vimeo.com/68735668


Facebook: Julie Goler, an educator at Beverly Hills HIgh School, uses Facebook to host discussions

among her sophomore honors English students. By creating online place for students to ask questions,

both of her and of their fellow classmates. And since most of her high schoolers are already on

Facebook, it’s easy for them to weigh in with tech tips, questions about the homework or suggestions

on tackling a paper. The result is a discussion that Goler can moderate.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-in-education/educator-qa-julie-goler/101516501505205

70





3) TWITTER

Twitter helps teachers and students to create their own learning network. It gives them the

opportunity to find and connect with the lives of people around the world who can help them

take their learning & teaching experience to the next level.

The biggest challenge for anyone who is just getting started with Twitter is how to filter out the

information that’s important from million of tweets out there. The best way to do this is by

doing educational hashtag searches in applications such as Tweetdeck or HootSuit. By using

hashtags, you can keep up with what elementry school teachers are talking about. For example,

you can search for #elemchat if you’re an elementary school teacher, you can search for

hashtags such as #edtech for education technology, #edchat for general education related

discussions on Twitter.

As an educator, three people that you must follow on twitter are @cybraryman,

@web20classroom & @Alicekeeler

Helpful tips

● When you’re signing-up on Twitter as an educational institution, you must choose a username

that clearly identifies your department or program. For example - :Institution-name-English,

Institution-name-Engineering, etc.

● Consider including your personal Twitter handle, so that your followers will know who does the

tweeting for that account

● Institution’s parent twitter account should be mentioned in all tweets

● Encourage students to share work socially.

● Use a hashtag to facilitate guest speaker discussions.

● Require original expert sources

● Require students to keep a blog.

Do you know that if you’re in the education industry, you can go to Cybraryman.com to know which

hashtags you should follow on twitter. http://www.cybraryman.com/


http://www.cybraryman.com/


4) INSTAGRAM

When kids are engaged, they learn better. That’s why educators are using Instagram to share

information and connect with their students, parents and other educators. Teachers can use

Instagram to creatively announce homework assignments, share classroom experiences with

the help of pictures.

Learning by doing and sharing - http://instagram.com/p/S1tXjaOoUx/

Lisa Highfill @highfillcrew uses Instagram in her classroom to engage with students

http://instagram.com/lhighfill During everyday classwork, class projects and field trips, Lisa’s students

click pictures of what they’re doing and describe in 140 characters. This gives them a chance to

practise collaboration, critical thinking with a real world audience. Lisa’s students are proving that all

the world is a learning canvas and we’re glad to be player in it.

Like Lisa, you can also use Instagram in your classroom to:

● Share learning with students, parents and Instagram community.

● Create student engagement opportunities - Photo essays, caption writing etc.

● Connect with other teachers and students

● Share homework assignments


http://instagram.com/p/S1tXjaOoUx/

http://instagram.com/lhighfill


KHAN ACADEMY

Any school with computers and internet connection can use Khan Academy to provide world

class education to their students for free. It allows students to work at their own pace and free

the teacher up to spend their time with students or individual groups of students who’re facing

difficulty in understanding in particular areas. Teachers can use the time saved to invest in

organizing practical activities in which students can apply the theoretical knowledge learned

from the video lectures to their real life.

CONCLUSION

While some educators look at social media as an opportunity to enrich learning experiences of

their students, there is also a community out there who don’t consider social media as serious

medium of learning. It’s time now that educators should start trusting their students more and

nurture a positive environment for social learning in which teachers and students can feel

empowered with social media.



Manage your School or College Efficiently with

Fedena School ERP Software

Fedena is a simple yet powerful school ERP software built to manage each and every system

and process of your institute. Fedena’s one of its kind features allows you to go beyond the

basic functionalities and add features like online examination and inventory management to

your institute. Fedena currently powers 40,000 institutes worldwide.


http://www.fedena.com/demo?utm_source=ebook&utm_medium=footer&utm_campaign=SocialGuide


why this resistance? - s3.classmill.coms3.classmill.com/modules/files/xbe/content-94cc.pdf · also...

Documents