Week 29 - Reflection on my use of social media as a PD tool as opposed to a teaching tool

This reflection is based on Jay and Johnson's (2002) reflective 3 step model: Descriptive, Comparative and Critical, to reflect on my use of social media within my current practice.

Step 1: Descriptive

When I first starting teaching Science in 2000, I was fortunate enough to have a local education authority in Northamptonshire, England that placed value on teacher networks and learning communities. This generally meant time out of the classroom to make these connections or establish learning networks. I would carefully weigh each learning opportunity against time lost with my students. To analyse the support systems and transition policies in place for students learning Science in primary school, successful moving into high school you had to go there. I actually went on such a research trip from Northamptonshire to Melbourne Australia. These learning networks were useful but had many limitations. According to (Whitaker, Zoul & Casas, 2015) these limitations can be; "the connections are limited and numbers often restricted due to lack of accessibility due to location, time or other factors". Today, however I can share my thoughts at a push of a button.

As an educator I began using social media in 2008, as a way to connect to other educators through twitter and the Knowledge Net platform. A year later we were encouraged to communicate with students using Facebook, as the school was no longer subscribing to Knowledge Net but had yet to set up an internal email/communication system with the students. Now there are obviously some concerns when using social media to contact students out of school. Fortunately the school was a small rural school in the Waikato where you lived next door to students and parents. I recall the nervous trepidation as I first sent a message to a student regarding the graph on her Science Fair board. Within minutes of the post, the parent commented that she would make sure this was done. It became my common practice to include parents in all posts for students.

In 2011, I change school and the policy here was different. At the beginning social media was frowned upon, then slowly it became an appropriate way of communicating with sports and cultural groups. This meant that a member if SLT had to be included into the group for monitoring purposes. But again this was not learning just communication. This is mainly due to the fact that currently the school uses O365, mainly OneNote and email to communicate and learning. Additionally education perfect is also used as a learning tool. Many apps such as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are blocked for students during the day. Therefore, I use social media for PD purposes.

Step 2: Comparative

The following pictograph shows my PLN from week 9. Six of the communities listed are connected via social media. This is not all of the resources I use but it is a start.

But what does this look like compared to other teachers in the MindLab G+ community for the 2018 intake?

Data retrieved from: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1s7pK8J2B--rLg5dd3jl660gaJUFwn5jVYm2pN8E5V8U/edit#responses

The social media tools I use appear limited compared the survey results. The majority appears to be sharing concepts, curriculum design and implementation of the NZC and Achievement Standards. It appears I stick to the tried and tested. It is now time to follow the advice provided in Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015), “Follow 5, Find 5, Take 5”. I also believe, that using the G+ MindLab community, I will be able to find ways to incorporate Social media in a New Zealand context.

Step 3: Critical Reflection.

I have enjoyed reading what others are doing with Social media tools within the primary sector. Additionally I have seen how my own children use social media in school and how their school uses these tools. I aim to utilise the Community of Learning that our school belongs to and the G+ community to look at how I can better utilise social media safely as a tool for learning.

I do still believe there are safety implications with the use of social media, which should ensure that teachers and parents together monitor the content students are exposed to while learning. I do also agree with (Magette, 2014) that social media does give our students the skills to become competent digital citizens who are able to deal with inappropriate comments and develop a sense of netiquette. Surely if we are expected to have more than 3 billion social media users worldwide by 2021, Statista (2018), then netiquette skills should be a compulsory communication skill honed and developed to ensure that our students can survive in a technology driven world as a life long learner.

References:

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002) Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Statista (2018). Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of- worldwide-social-network-users/

Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What connected educators do differently. New York, NY: Routledge.