Social Media, HELP!
Social Media:
The place to get all the Right Answers, Right?
Once seen as a place to mindlessly scroll to escape all the problems of the world, Social Media has now become a place to connect people from all walks of life. I know that the longer I am in education the more I find myself connecting to other educators on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. BUT... is this a good thing or a bad thing?
*Connection*
I have been witness to social media blowing up someone's life and I have seen where social media can be the best thing in staying connected. In education, social media can be a place of sharing ideas between educators, students sharing their ideas for a class assignment or a place for teachers to find comedic humor that only they would understand. Social Media for teachers is, most of the time, teachers, admin., reading coaches, etc. sharing or asking for ideas on how to create a better environment for their students or, in the case of Facebook Post in the screenshots below, a reading coach asking how to support their teachers with a new curriculum change for the upcoming school year. (Because of privacy reasons, I have blacked out the profile picture and the names of the participants.)
This is the great part of social media that connects people in the same walks of life to help out each other even is they are half way across the U.S. In the end, everyone has an opinion about everything and social media can be a rabbit hole of bad ones, but in the place of connecting people that are all experiencing the same things its a great thing to have.
*Fact or Fiction*
On one hand, social media can be used to connect people as we have already discussed but it can be described as a two-edged sword with the benefits of connection and collaboration but on the other hand, the more you are a part of social media, on any scale, the more issues people have with privacy, bullying, and the potential for distractions within the school setting. As Lawrence (2022) shared about that Facebook has many issues such as "widespread issues with data privacy and transparency". These are issues that are not just specific to Facebook but social media outlets as a whole.
However, there are also benefits to social media when looking through the eyes of an educator. One of the most significant is that it is a place for educators to create and be a part of a Professional Learning Network (PLN). These types of social media relationships offer a place for consistent support and inspiration. Like in the screenshots earlier, these PLNs are a place for collaboration with other educators on teaching strategies, curriculum development, and professional growth opportunities.
Here is a link to a list of 5 PLNs of you are interested in being a part of one: 5 Personal Learning Networks for Educators
*Tips for using Social Media*
Linked is a video that gives more tips on how to teach internet
👇safety to your students!👇
References:
Lawrence, D. (2022). Digital Writing: A Guide to writing for Social Media and the web. Broadview Press.
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Mary Katelyn,
ReplyDeleteYour post made me think, once again, about the reality that social media has many advantages as well as disadvantages. Actually, Güney (2023) revealed that “previous studies have demonstrated that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter can have numerous advantages in K-12 education. These social media platforms offer unique opportunities for students and teachers to engage in personalized learning, collaborate, and share information” (pp. 93-94). Your statements about both positive as well as negative stories is what makes it so important to remain aware of how we are using social media in our personal lives and as educators. Just like researchers have highlighted the positive side about social media, they have also highlighted many negatives. For instance, Lawrence (2022) mentioned that “social media companies continue to invade the privacy of their users, use their platforms to push particular ideological agendas, make billions of dollars on advertising revenue through allowing largely unregulated hyper-targeted advertising, and a host of other incredibly problematic issues…” (p. 49). In spite of this, not everything is negative, but it is a complex issue that needs to be addressed from many different angles. The sooner this is addressed, the better, because sometimes I fear we will see the negative effects of social media when it becomes too late.
References
Güney, K. (2023). Considering the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing social media to enhance learning and engagement in K-12 education. Research in Social Sciences and Technology, 8(2), 83-100. https://doi.org/10.46303/ressat.2023.13
Lawrence, D. (2022). Digital writing: A guide to writing for social media and the web. Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press.
I, too, have seen social media cause disastrous results in people's lives. On the flip side of that, there is so much good to be seen from social media use! One study I found highlighted how new teachers heavily depended on social media for professional development, using it to network and find like-minded individuals that were in the same niche as them within education (Staudt Willet, 2023). These teachers may have been feeling totally alone if they were unable to connect via social media! Lawrence (2022) wrote about our posts on social media going beyond just that initial post and perhaps shaping the lives of other people (p.39). I think networking across the country is a great example of this!
ReplyDelete-M. E. Sammis
References
Lawrence, D. (2022). Digital writing: A guide to writing for social media and the web. Broadview Press.
Staudt Willet, K. B. (2023). Early career teachers’ expansion of professional learning networks with social media. Professional Development in Education, 50(2), 386-402. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2023.2178481
-M. E.