Skip to main content

Social Media as a Learning Tool in the Classroom

When the phrase, "Social Media" comes up, most people go straight to websites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. They think that Shares, Follows and Likes are the only things that people who are active on Social Media care about. Although this has become a big part of our society today, it is not always thought of that Social Media is much larger and more diverse than these three popular websites. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, social media is defined as, "websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking". Through the two main areas of Social Media, creative/sharing websites and networking websites form the broad term of Social Media and can be used in many useful ways throughout the classroom.






When people think of Social Media, they don't always think of some of the daily used sites that we go on as being associated with the term, Social Media. YouTube, a website I personally go on anyday is a great tool when it comes to educating your students. There are online lectures that students can watch, old "Bill Nye the Science Guy" or "Magic School Bus" reruns that can be watched to get your students excited about learning, and for students to post videos of themselves, others or projects that they create in school. Along with YouTube, there are other websites that fall under this category, such as Pinterest and Tumblr. Now, these sites may be seen as veering towards both the creative/sharing aspect and the networking aspect, too, but from personal experience and from asking around among my classmates, many people just post about what they want to share, or have created, and others end up reblogging or sharing onto their blogs/pages because they have similar beliefs or really had a connection with a certain quote. From a future teacher standpoint, I know that many educators use Pinterest to get ideas on what crafts to have their students do. As a future elementary school teacher, I plan on using this Social Media site quite a lot. Additionally, I used to teach at the preschool in my high school and I would go on Pinterest all of the time. My favorite craft from the website was in relation to painting a paper plate pig with different vegetables. The kids had to "feed" the animals to make them full and pink again. It was so cute and the students had a lot of fun doing the activity, too. Social Media is not only a good place for people to express themselves, but also a place where people can interact with each other. Websites, such as GooglePlay or Skype can get people involved with others. Teachers from different locations can teach a class together. This can also benefit the students as they learn about a variety of cultures or communicate with other students their age who may be struggling with the same things that they are. Overall, I believe that Social Media should not be viewed in vain of likes & follows, but rather in regards to bettering the world around them, and linking those who would not be in contact if it not be for the benefit of this advancement in technology.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

B.Y.O.D.

Ever since the fifth grade, I have felt like my grade level in school was the last to do everything. My sister's class in school was always the first class to start everything new regarding technology. Although my sister and I remained only two years apart in age, it was very weird for me to think of just how big of a difference bringing a form of technology into the classroom can make. Once I reached the 6th grade and had entered middle school, I realized that technology was taking over in the classrooms. I was required, by Illinois Law, to take a Computers class in my first year of middle school. And teachers were provided with carts of computers and iPads to give us the technological advancement that was needed in the classroom. But, technology is very expensive. Putting the everyday Smartboard in a teacher's classroom is thousands of dollars, and although it is nice to have classroom sets, most schools don't have the funding for it. Personal stories in relation to mine
Post a Comment
Read more

Learning through Minecraft??

So, I'm about to nerd out and be completely honest here: I love video games. My little brother and little sister and I play them all the time together and we've all become pretty competitive when playing. One of the games that my brother and I really got into was Minecraft. When playing Minecraft, you're giving two options: you either get to choose a game mode or a creative mode. In the game mode, you are spent going through the game, killing all of these bad specimen that come at you and are required to build a house and hunt and capture all of these resources to create a good life for your person in Minecraft. Now, the fact that all of these random monsters were coming at me, terrified me to no end, so I would always end up dying and doing poorly at the game. That's when my brother introduced me to the creative mode. In this mode, you don't have any monsters coming at you and you can just create whatever you want and store your creations on that mode. You have an
Post a Comment
Read more