Social media sites, microblogs like Twitter, and virtual environments offer exciting opportunities for professional learning among colleagues and for classroom learning among students. Facebook, Today’s Meet, and Twitter are just a few social media and meeting collaboration tools that can also be used for educational purposes. Twitter is an exceptional tool for learning, if your district allows access. High school students in particular could collaborate and communicate with teachers and peers about upcoming assignments, they could review research about curricular topics, and share their own learning with a global audience, I have had a Twitter account for about a year now, and am just beginning to realize the potential it holds for teaching and learning. As an elementary school teacher, I have not yet explored Twitter’s potential use in the classroom, but Twitter does help me learn about innovative classroom learning strategies, new trends and current issues. For instance, I recently started visiting #DigitalEquity to become informed about current conversation regarding equitable access. Digital Equity As Gorski’s article, “Education Equity and the Digital Divide” explains, digital equity involves more than just providing devices and ensuring network access (2005). Gorski’s article is over ten years old, but this insight still rings true. If you give me a solid-state pencil, but I do not know how to write, that pencil will not do me much good. I could use it play a little, maybe make some interesting shapes, but learning would be minimal. More and more schools have turned to BYOD or one-to-one initiatives. Students have more access to devices than ever before. Still, we are not fully addressing the sociological issues regarding digital equity. We must build both capability and understanding for our students and community. We constantly read that our students are more connected than ever. Most families have computers, smart phones and internet service. However, families may not know how to use devices or the internet for learning. They may not understand the importance of building a positive digital portfolio. They may not truly understand how to be a good digital citizen. In addition, we cannot ignore the fact that there are still families who do not have network access or devices. I work at a Title I school where over 90% of our students are on a free/reduced lunch plan. We also have a significant population of English Language Learners, and some ELL students have parents who do not speak English. Gorski states that Hispanic families generally have less access to internet, devices or technology tools than other ethnic groups (Gorski, 2005). My personal observation affirms this finding. We must not only focus on building capacity for technology use, but on building relationships of trust and collaboration with our entire learning community. We need to actively invite families to technology workshops, publish resources about reduced price internet services, and create bi-lingual resources. We should have interpreters at workshops, when appropriate. Finally, we should inform families about available educational resources, how to access them, and how they are valuable for their children. Social Media for Professional Learning and Classroom Learning Social Media offers excellent opportunities for teachers to learn about new technology tools, resources and instructional strategies. Over the last several months, I’ve begun to learn what a fantastic tool social media is for creating professional learning communities. One of the more promising, and free, educational collaboration sites is Edmodo. When using Edmodo in the classroom, teachers can create assignments, have online discussions, share photos and documents, and potentially use a blended classroom model. I used Edmodo to create a discussion group for my Reading Bowl Team. I created quizzes about the books students had read, and students created and answered their own discussion questions about the books. They even discussed the reading bowl books over winter break. Edmodo also hosts professional learning groups. English teachers, technology coordinators, various school systems have their own PL communities within Edmodo. Teachers can also create their own groups. When we were researching resources for a new science lab, we created a committee group and shared thoughts and resources within our small science community. Backchannel sites are also excellent resources for background discussion during presentations, particularly with large-group presentations. Today’s Meet and 81Dash are two popular and easy-to-use backchannel sites. Students can post questions and comments during a presentation, and the speaker could incorporate these comments into the presentation. Teachers would need establish rules for digital etiquette well in advance, and be prepared to remove inappropriate comments quickly and seamlessly. Virtual Worlds Until recently, I never fully appreciated how fascinating and engaging virtual worlds could be for teaching and learning. Even though Second Life has been available for quite a while, I actually just created an account. This virtual reality site is not only interesting for socializing, it is an intriguing way to connect with your professional colleagues. I created an avatar, explored a little, and found several “islands” that are actually professional learning groups. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has an island dedicated to its Virtual Reality Community (SIGVE). There is a wealth of educational content within Second Life, and the platform seems especially suited for high school or college students. While I was on ISTE’s island, I found and saved some articles about creating virtual learning environments in schools. Another virtual environment is Google’s Tour Builder. With Tour Builder, students not only can use pre-made tours to explore their world, they can create their own virtual models, and share these models with peers around the world. For instance, students studying Georgia Ecosystems could find or take pictures of ecosystem examples. Students could then map out the different ecosystems using Google Earth, then add paths, tags, notations and links to websites for further research. As I explored this tool, I created a small example of how a completed product might look. You can link to it here. Virtual environments, when combined with sound instructional support, offer students a creative, thoughtful and engaging learning opportunity. This is learning that sticks. Students who research ecosystems, find descriptions and pictures of them, chart and annotate them on a map, and publish that map will remember what they learned. I described only two of the many virtual learning environments available for students. I look forward to exploring and sharing even more virtual learning environments with you in future posts. I look forward to learning and sharing more about Penguin Club, iCivics and the ever-popular Minecraft. Finally, as we need to remember that virtual experiences are not substitutes for classroom instruction. These experiences are most effective when combined with other research-based instructional strategies and solid classroom teaching (Solomon & Schrum, 2014). Diverse Learner Needs Because of their flexibility and adaptability, social media and virtual environments can lead to powerful differentiated learning opportunities. These platforms, properly implemented, are exceptionally well suited for diverse learner needs. In virtual environments, instruction is often individualized as student proceed at their own pace. These tools also frequently present media in a variety of forms: text, images, puzzles, and audio. Backchannel platforms give students who are reluctant to speak in class a chance to share their learning and reflections. Finally, social learning platforms like Edmodo offer teachers the ability to create personalized or differentiated learning opportunities. Teachers can tailor lessons to student needs, offering scaffolding or enrichment, choice, a variety of textual and image combinations, language support, and self-pacing within the platform. Gorski, P. (2005). Education equity and the digital divide. AACE Journal, 13(1), 3-45. Solomon, G. & Lynne Schrum, L. (2014). Web 2.0 how-to for educators. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education. | Edmodo Screenshots Second Life Screenshot Tour Builder Screenshot |
3 Comments
Jennifer Hall
2/12/2016 12:14:33 pm
Theresa,
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TONY JONES
2/14/2016 07:43:25 pm
Theresa,
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2/16/2016 12:19:23 am
Hello Theresa,
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AuthorTerri Anschutz - Digital Learning Specialist, Media Specialist and student advocate Archives
July 2016
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