Week 30: Using Social Online Networks in teaching or Professional Development.

This year I have used Facebook with my Hockey teams as a communication tool. The changing community at KHS suggests that Face book is becoming a more accepted practice to communicate and connect with students and the wider community. Some faculties of learning are trailing Facebook as a space to collaborate. I have trialled social media in a previous role. I suggested students to use twitter to follow National Geographic and use Pinterest to extend and organise their learning, but the one students preferred the most was Facebook. So I used Facebook to as space for students to communicate, collaborate, share ideas, resources and course information

KHS HOCKEY COMMUNITY FACEBOOK PAGE.
 I CREATED FOR TEAMS, COACHES, MANAGES and PARENTS.

Sharples, M et al (2016), discusses the added benefit of using social media as a learning tool, it can bring learning to life, using different times, spaces and supports collaboration, creativity and communication. I could set up a Facebook again as I did in the past, it was successful in my previous school. However I would need to consider potential challenges like the digital divide is real in my current school, some students can afford devices and have access to the internet at home, and others can barely afford heating at winter. 

Another challenge is time. It can be consuming to set up a social media learning platform and keep it up to date. You can potentially invest a lot of time and effort into putting up relevant subject resources, changing of the group members from year to year and the information suited to learners, but if you change roles or jobs information will become irrelevant, however the practice of using digital technology and social awareness could increase. 

Other potential challenges when using social media are privacy issues and deciding what you want students to do with the social media sharing resources or collaborate, enter live forums, learn from experts outside of the education realm. connect with schools nationally or international. What platform would you use? There is the argument that Learning Management Systems such as Edmodo, or schoology may provide many of these activities for students 

My Educational Ideas Pinterest Page.

I have used social media for professional development for my teaching particularly when I have not been able to undertake further studies. I am a member of various Facebook subject groups for social studies and geography, locally, nationally and International. I use Twitter to follow and chat to various groups and people to gain professional learning, but also used twitter at conferences such as the google summit and PPTA .Twitter allows me to keep connected with the world wide news and current affairs, some of which are particularly important in social studies and geography. I have included a quick screen shot of my Educational Ideas, pinterest board, here I share educational ideas with my friend who is an ECE teacher. 

Although, Bolstad., et al (2012) suggested that social networking and collaboration may not always support the future focused learning, and suggests some network activities are just short fixes addressing immediate concerns. That is why I have chosen to study at the Mindlab having access for the first 16 weeks in the Hawke's Bay which has addressed the geographical challenge which Melhuish (2013) suggested that a motivation for educators to use social media was the sharing of ideas and advice, and that social media had brought educators geographically closer allowing for greater learning opportunities, when it is physically impossible.

References:

Bolstad, R and Gilbert, J, McDowall, S, Bull A, Boyd, S and Hipkins, R, (2012)      Supporting Future Oriented teaching and learning, A New Zealand Perspective. NZCER.

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han...

Sharples, M., de Roock , R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Looi,C-K, McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., Wong, L. H. (2016). Innovating Pedagogy 2016: Open University Innovation Report 5. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved fromhttp://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf