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#PLNwins


Social media gets a bad rap. 

Narcissistic tweens posting filtered selfies with excessive hashtags. Fitness fiends hawking FitTea and spamming your feed with the dreaded #belfie. Political warzone in your Facebook timeline, rampant cyber bullying in the comment section, public shaming on Twitter. It’s enough to make any self-respecting adult think twice before Agreeing to Terms and entering the social media world.

But social media doesn’t have to be negative. It can be a wonderful tool with positive learning outcomes. Social media is empowering to students, teachers, and parents alike, allowing the transfer of information in new and accessible ways. We can use social media to build a new sense of community and encourage collaboration. Students are turning to social media to share success stories, find opportunities in their field, and collaborate on projects with other students near and far. Students don’t need to be convinced of the value of social media in education. They already see the value and oftentimes were reaping the rewards long before educators caught onto the usefulness.

Personal Learning Networks seem to be one of the happy outcomes of integrating social media and education. Social media lends itself to strong community ties anyways, so directing students to develop PLNs within their existing social media makes sense. Why not communicate with students in the online world, where they already spend much of their time?

Learning management systems like Blackboard and Moodle have been involved in online learning for over ten years now but they limit information sharing to small controlled communities. Educators have a responsibility to utilize technology to enhance learning and many seem to rise to the challenge. For example, worldgeochat consists of five teachers from different regions of the country, each in a unique teaching situation. They created a PLN to support themselves and other teachers using the hashtag #worldgeochat. Students and educators can use the hashtag as a resource for knowledge and as a way to connect with each other. They describe themselves as an invested community, offering support and challenging perspectives. And ultimately, this is the goal of a PLN: to create engaged learning experiences.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 25, 2018 at 5:35 PM

    I like your spin on social media. I used to teach at a project based learning high school that was part of something called New Tech Network. It recognized that technology is the way of the future whether we like it or not...so why not embrace it and teach students to utilize it for its resources and connection to others. I was part of may projects that my students were working on in Idaho Falls and collaborating with a whole other group in California or Georgia. It was very fun to see the connection and have the students get different perspectives from peers across the nation.

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    Replies
    1. Julia BarrettJanuary 28, 2018 at 7:02 PM

      I love that education is taking an "embrace it" approach to technology. It's awesome that your students were able to connect with students across the country. I think the ability to interact with people far away is a unique and amazing opportunity for students today. We have to take advantage of it!

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  2. Dr. RobinJanuary 28, 2018 at 3:41 PM

    You highlight an important point...technology is just a tool. We can use it for frivolous purposes (nothing wrong with that) or we can use it to intentionally enhance our professional development (definitely nothing wrong with that!) It's HOW we use the technology that determines whether or not it is a useful tool for us or not. I love the example of the the WorldGeoChat. What ideas can you take from that use of social media and apply to your own situation?

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    Replies
    1. Julia BarrettJanuary 28, 2018 at 7:08 PM

      I'm taking a semester off from teaching but will be returning to teach a Student Development class in the fall... I think my new knowledge of PLNs will be a great addition to my course. I loved WorldGeoChat too! It's such a great use of technology. It's amazing that we can create places for people from all over to share knowledge about subjects they are passionate about.

      Delete

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