Activity 7

Activity 7

Social media in teaching and professional development.

The most important key features of social media that are beneficial for teaching and learning for me are:

    

Skye extends classroom and staff room walls i.e. during class I can bring, literally, the world in through Skype or hangouts.  Last year a teacher was on leave; cycling from Athens to the Pacific Ocean across Asia and my geography class was able to Skype him when he reached

Kyrgyzstan despite dodgy internet and timezone issues.   The students still remember that conversation and talk about it often, "yeah, where was Mr P..............., really?"  During a field trip to the West Coast the DOC liaison person was unable to see us on the (changed) date we were there, so when we got back to school we were able to Skype him also to conduct the interview necessary for students to complete Geography research (with an emphasis on collecting primary data). With Hangouts (the google equivalent of Skype) I brought Kevin Honeycutt into our school hall as the keynote speaker for all staff on a TOD. 

The potential challenges that all teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities is the distraction factor to students once a screen is in front of them. Teenagers, whether or not they are "digital natives" must also be educated in respectful and appropriate use of social media in school and this is clearly linked to the "Management of Self" key competency in the New Zealand Curriculum.  There are legal requirements and usually protocols for school digital media use, however at this early stage of use in my school, there also seems to be many grey areas around acceptable use.

The social media platform that best supports engagement with my professional development is 

                                                         

Twitter!

I joined Twitter in 2009 and it has been a great source of information for general teaching and learning practise as well as a 'mine-field' of information when trouble-shooting almost anything.  There are gazillions of self-help videos and blogs and answers to all my questions and ponderings. From simple requests such as "How do I cut and paste from one google doc to another?" to more sophisticated professional demands, "what is the best political cartoon platform IN THE WORLD???"  It's also been great to praise and affirm other teachers when awesome resources or links are tweeted.  I know that putting your stuff out there to be critiqued, in the real hemisphere is nerve-racking enough, so I imagine that releasing your best lesson activities into the twitter-sphere must be 305 million times worse.  My philosophy, when the educators I follow share resources, is to compliment the creator of the resource.

  It's a nice buzz!

My professional development is being developed and enhanced on yet a fourth Social Media platform - FACEBOOK...  Our local subject association Christchurch Geography Teachers' Association has a facebook group page, which has 64 members including other Geography Teachers' Associations.  The ways I use this group is to share cool links of specific relevance to the NZ L1 - L3 NCEA Geography courses.  Due to the special interest and expertise of all the members in this group for Geography, I go here whenever I need such specific advice.  It's been great for upskilling and keeping my teaching contexts current - as these should change annually. 

I would never think to look for information like this without an alert from Facebook.  I feel confident sharing these up to date links from experts with students on my school geography site...  It's a win/win.