Social Media in the Context of Learning: Problems & Possibilities

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It’s been one full week since #DigCitSummitCA in Toronto, an incredible day of conversations and learning and where Rylin and Darcie, two of our student leaders for ONEDSSchat shared these thoughts about the opportunity to use social media for learning in their classes as a result of our student-led chat.

The fact is, we need to be more intentional about bringing in social media IN THE CONTEXT of learning. Here are a couple of challenges and questions that teachers have mentioned as roadblocks, both at the Summit and in my previous conversations and what I would say:

We can’t use social media with kids under 13

Almost every app requires that students be 13+.  Using a class account, and giving students full accountability to make decisions, is a way to ensure that we are showing students that connections and learning can happen via tools that they only associate with entertainment, and that we are following the law. It also allows for so many in the moment digital citizenship conversations.  Here is a resource from socialleadia.org which may be useful for this.

Kids need to learn to talk to each other in person

Oral communication skills are essential and should be practiced regularly by students (both formally and informally). We can use strategies like turn & talk, four corners, fish bowl, debates, book club discussions, Ted-Ed style talks etc…as opportunities for students to express their ideas in class. There is nothing more frustrating to me than to walk by a class and see every student on a screen for most of the period! Taking a look at social media as a springboard for a discussion about a topic, however, is a way to bring discussions to another level in the class and bring immediate relevancy and real-world application to any lesson.

For example, this week in our book club, we had a really great face to face discussion about the Global Read Aloud book, Refugee.When I brought kids to the hashtags #GRARefugee and #RefugeeHS, they were amazed at the other students reading the book, as well as some of the questions the students were posing. One of the students, who was born in Europe, pushed back a little and suggested that the three stories selected, although engaging, were also a little stereotypical. We talked about who the primary audience might be, and why those stories may have been selected.  It took us a full five minutes to compose the following tweet together:

You may be wondering why? The fact is, the student believed very strongly that the book portrayed a limited and Western bias. I led them through creating a tweet which would get at what we wanted to come out of the tweet, and how using the term, “we are wondering” would not put people on the defensive, but would elicit a sharing of resources. She jokingly admitted that her tweet would have been very different: to me, that was entirely the point and time well spent!

We can’t do that in our District

Every District is different and the level of access to social media tools vary. Two things to address this: 1) There are Districts who currently have access to social media tools with the SAME privacy laws as others. What are they doing differently? 2) What courageous conversations do you need to have with IT, with parents? You will actually be surprised at the extent to which parents will support you. When I recently attended a parent night where the speaker spent the entire hour instilling fear about social media to the audience, a parent expressed her frustration because as she put it, she was hoping to get strategies about how she could support her kids to use these tools positively.

Social media all the time

Although, as an extra curriclular club, we didn’t have the opportunity to fully engage in the Global Read Aloud this year, just bringing in this one lesson interrupts their thinking about social media. What if every student, in every class got one opportunity to explore social media in the context of learning just once a semester? What would the ripple effect of this be?

This tweet, shared by Rebecca Chambers suggests a current reality faced by a high school student who quit social media and has seen immense benefits. At this point, you may be saying, what a chilling contradiction to everything you have been talking about, Jennifer. I actually don’t think so. I share it because I think we need to hear this student’s perspective. It has been common practice over the last decade NOT to bring social media into the classroom, and what Jesse is experiencing is the direct result of that. It is a fact that with the exception of a few kids (who I highlight in Social LEADia, and others I continue to meet), the generation of kids I am currently teaching in high school (and arguably many in middle school as well) are using social media to amuse themselves to death. This is a narrative we need to interrupt.

A great way to get started is to check out @ONEdSschat as a part of Media Literacy week on November 9th. Hope to see you and your students there!

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