Allies vs. Enemies; Why the use of Social Media in the Classroom is a Good Thing.

Picture from Apples and ABC's Blog

      As a Masters in Teaching Candidate and future teacher hopeful, I understand the necessity of technology in the classroom. Not only is technology necessitated for personal research and ideas but communication as well. Through the use technology, specially with social media and collaborative creation I can encourage student voice and learning.

          Understanding the environment and culture of your classroom families is huge! As a future educator, I intend to create a classroom page on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as creating a classroom website. I want to be able to showcase my students talents and accomplishments in a way that they will love and feel proud of.

           As mentioned in my first blog post (which you can find here), I am against technology when it comes to replacing the natural human interaction that is needed. However, I am all for utilizing technology and social media platforms to further education and to raise the level of excitement about creating good work in the classroom. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. are all things that kids even as young as kindergarten are familiar with, so why wouldn't we as educators work towards making these things our allies rather than our enemies?

           On top of being a great platform for communicating with families and presenting student work, social media is a valuable resource for teachers wishing to get more information. You can use Pinterest, Twitter, or blogging sites for lesson ideas that hit on the Common Core standards. Or you can use those same platforms to create a community and bounce ideas off of one another. The opportunities are endless when it comes to ways educators can utilize technology.

          If one is opening up their classroom to technology, they must be careful. Technology, just like everything else, is a slippery slope and could turn out to have a negative effect when kids use it in a way that it was not intended for. This could mean a multitude of things like bullying, messing around during lessons, or simply not understanding the intended reason behind it.

          In the end, one would be foolish to not at least attempt to incorporate technology and social media into the classroom. These kids are running circles around us, so we, as educators, need to think of how we can hold their attention and do something that interests them and keeps them engaged in the material.

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Should Everyone get a Trophy?

^ This is the blog post by a student that I “commented” on. In the end, I complimented them instead of commenting on their post. I have never thought of the difference until this class. But on the other hand, I still wouldn’t comment too severe because I don’t know what age the child is, nor did the teacher invite open comments like that. I do appreciate the opportunity to realize the difference of commenting, and complimenting in a response.