Social Media

Before this class, I never considered a social media option in an education setting. I always felt that they would be distracting and unproductive. However, this course has opened my eyes to many new possibilities so as I reflect on this week’s blog post I do so with an open mind to new ideas.

I started with the article The Social Media Teacher – Do’s and Don’ts. Since I never had thought about the area of social media in the classroom I felt this was a good place to begin. Below are my summaries and conclusions about the Do’s and Don’ts presented.

 

Borrowed from Positive Results Marketing 

The Do’s:

1.     Spice up your classroom – This can enhance writing skills through new areas such as blogging, instead of old tactics such as journaling.

2.     Get yourself involved – You may consider having a page yourself as the teacher in the social media site you choose. This allows you to post assignments, discussion topics, or leave comments on student work.

3.     Set up a monitoring system – A teacher needs to understand how he or she will make sure that the language and conversations going on online are appropriate. A teacher should also make sure that there are no online dangers to their students.

4.     Personal Learning Network – The use of other resources and people to connect and share ideas!

The Don’ts:

1.     Forget about online reputation management – It’s important to keep personal and professional life separate.  You also have to consider about the content your students are posting and how they will be a representation of themselves, your class, and the school.

2.     Become stagnant – A teacher should do their best to keep their educational social media site active and engaging. Once a teacher becomes inactive, students may loose interest and attention.

3.     Try and do too much – Educators must understand their limits and be prepared to manage a social media site to the best of their abilities.

4.     Forget traditional teaching – Social media should be used in collaboration to enhance traditional learning, not to replace traditional learning completely.

Starting with this article allows me to know where to begin. This gave me a good backbone before I make sure I’m ready for a social media site. I think at this point, my biggest concern would be the time aspect and trying to do too much. I’m not sure I would have ever considered that unless I read that article. I would have jumped on in with changing my journals to blogs or my assignment posts to a twitter page, but would that have been too much too soon? Would I be able to actively keep up the page so students don’t become disinterested? This article got me thinking, and I’m glad I have this insight to weigh in on before I take my next step.