Activity 6: Using Social Online Networks in Teaching or Professional Development - Week 30

Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration (Rouse, 2013).

I, like millions of others, use social media on a daily basis as I find it the perfect portal in which to remain in a state of instant connectedness with family, friends and a wider community. No matter how you look at it, social media has become both an integral and influential aspect of our daily lives. With the advent of a myriad of portable fast and reliable digital devices we now have the ability to share anything, anytime, anywhere we want to. Software developers are constantly introducing a range of innovative social networking apps that allow users with similar interests, backgrounds and real-life connections to build and nourish connected online communities.

Sharples et al. (2016) suggest that social media can bring learning to life by summoning up different times, spaces, characters and possibilities. They can promote a sound sense of connectedness for educators through the sharing of resources and encourage communication between whanau and students due to the collaboration and creativity that online social networks allow. In the past, I have considered myself to be a proficient online communicator and when I sit down and reflect on how I use social media to enhance my professional development, I actually do participate and use it often. With this in mind, my community of practice has grown exponentially predominantly due to being part of the Mindlab course. I have been introduced to a range of new teaching and learning opportunities that have been influenced through interaction with online communities.

When it comes to using social media within my teaching practice, I believe it is far more limited (but getting better). I use social media as a way to gather information and resources, from sites such as Teacherspayteachers to access resources and assist my planning and teaching. Within this site there is a vast range of educational resources available for users to download. These resources are created and posted by teachers all around the world and anyone can submit a creation. I have downloaded a few but am yet to post any of my own. I do however, share digital copies of these resources with others in my community of practice by uploading them to Google Docs for future access. Dwyer et al. (2009) state that this is an example of one person producing something of interest that is then accessed by another person, as enabled by the socio-technical network (as cited in Melhuish, 2013).

There are a number of other social media platforms I use or have used in the recent past to support and engage in Professional Development. I am an avid user of Facebook and belong to a number of educational including NZ Teachers (primary), Google Apps NZ Primary, ILE and Collaborative Teaching NZ and Longworth Education (play based learning). Due to the influence of Mindlab, I now regularly use and contribute to a number of Google+ communities, maintain my first ever blog on Blogger and have become more of a contributor rather than merely a participator on Twitter. Within our community of practice at school we collaborate with each other using Google Drive to share files and documents, Youtube, Class Dojo, Seesaw, eTap and Reading Eggs.

Social networking is imperative for us as educators to stay connected with each other. For us to evolve as teachers it is important that we create social networks that allow us to communicate with others from a multitude of backgrounds. This collaboration and support through participation in online communities has the ability to enable us to be part of a transformative and powerful movement. (Office of Ed Tech, 2013). Social networking as part of our professional development has some clear advantages. This has been highlighted during our Mindlab course with the ability to participate in activities such as we are doing now with blogging and also having the opportunity to access informative webinars at our discretion. Ultimately this is a form of teacher agency. We know that effective adult learning hinges upon the extent to which learners have agency over the process and that self-driven learning is vital for sustainable learning, and increasingly this may be facilitated flexibly using online technologies. (Melhuish, 2013).

  

References

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved From http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/8482/thesis.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

Office of Ed Tech. (2013, Sep 18). Connected Educators. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Vd4JP_DB8

Rouse, M. (2013). Social Media. Retrieved from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/social-media

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 from http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf

Solis, B. (2016). The Conversation Prism. Retrieved from https://conversationprism.com/

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