Social Media and Learning
If you had asked me about 6 months ago how social media can help one learn, I would be out of my depth trying to provide a response. For me, social media was just that -- a medium to help you be social. Just looking at my interactions with friends and with social media, they were largely sharing of stories, photographs, or playing of little games. I would not have considered that learning.
However, I could have never been so wrong.
Social Media as a Platform. Even at the lowest level, one could use social media simply as a means to connect to your learners and share simple resources. Instead of centering communication around face-to-face ones in class, social media offers an alternate means to discuss homework, classroom issues, and share simple resources.
Engagement Value. Because social media employs multiple mediums (videos, songs, games), learners could be engaged for longer periods of time. These social media platforms provide that element of fun, which students may not associate with your traditional classroom and teaching methodologies.
Micro-Learning. Recently, I have also been made aware of micro-learning. This could be simplistically defined as learning which deals with relatively small learning units. So, while I had always been skeptical about the content of online articles, looking through a different lens showed that with proper curation (through the educator, or by teaching learners how to identify reliable sources) it is possible for learners to pick up nuggets of information that are valuable.
Here, Norman (2016) shares 5 ways in which you can use social media as learning tools in the classroom.
However, I could have never been so wrong.
Social Media as a Platform. Even at the lowest level, one could use social media simply as a means to connect to your learners and share simple resources. Instead of centering communication around face-to-face ones in class, social media offers an alternate means to discuss homework, classroom issues, and share simple resources.
Engagement Value. Because social media employs multiple mediums (videos, songs, games), learners could be engaged for longer periods of time. These social media platforms provide that element of fun, which students may not associate with your traditional classroom and teaching methodologies.
Micro-Learning. Recently, I have also been made aware of micro-learning. This could be simplistically defined as learning which deals with relatively small learning units. So, while I had always been skeptical about the content of online articles, looking through a different lens showed that with proper curation (through the educator, or by teaching learners how to identify reliable sources) it is possible for learners to pick up nuggets of information that are valuable.
Here, Norman (2016) shares 5 ways in which you can use social media as learning tools in the classroom.
- Facebook Group for you class
- Blogging for homework
- Hashtag a chemistry or physics joke on Twitter
- Pinning educational resources on Pinterest
- Flipped classrom using Youtube
(source: https://elearningindustry.com/5-ultimate-tricks-using-social-media-learning-tools)
Josh, out.
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