Social media in the classroom: too risky?

There are now more than 500 million users on Facebook, half of whom log on every day. Social media has transformed the way that people communicate with their friends, share their experiences and plan their lives but it’s also created new challenges and special problems for schools.

Teachers face the risk that their private lives might be exposed or that students may use the sites inappropriately.

Yet some schools are already harnessing the power of Facebook and Twitter to excite students about education.

We thought we would assess this by considering whether the pros outweigh the cons of using social media sites in education, particularly now that social media is such an integral part of students’ lives.

Twitter gives shy students a voice

Distractions seem to be everywhere, with students of younger and younger ages having access to internet-enabled devices, even when they’re in the classroom. But for many ICT evangelists, mobile technology is not inhibiting students’ focus in class but instead helping to raise engagement and enhance teaching and learning.

Enrique Legaspi, a middle school teacher in Los Angeles is one such proponent. After attending a seminar in San Francisco on the uses of social media, he began to trial examples of real-world best practice within his own classroom.

A digital approach to blended learning

From flipped classroom teaching to Kagan and flex learning, technology is helping teachers blend their lesson strategies in new and more integrated ways.

Teachers will often work along a continuum that sees them tailor and tweak the degree of online learning in relation to offline, face-to-face sessions. The purpose of this is to combine online resources that personalise the learning instruction with facilitated, collaborative and project work, in effect blending the teaching methods to raise engagement.

The key to any effective blended-learning approach centres on raising and maintaining effective learner engagement. While for many teachers mobile learning and the use of digital resources will naturally raise students’ interest through its appeal and relevance to them, this will not be enough to sustain their focus and interest over time. Fortunately, within the blended learning model, digital technology is used to complement and not replace the role of the teacher. There is still a strong demand for face-to-face, bricks-and-mortar learning, offering a unique opportunity to test and maintain engagement.

But how can you make the most of your time with your students?

3k exhibitors, 20k new products… it could only be the Consumer Electronics Show 2013!

It’s that time of the year again where over four days 3,000 exhibitors, many of which are tech leaders in their respected markets, descend upon the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to showcase this year’s most innovative and inventive tech products.

First held in New York City in 1967 the show has a long history of announcing some of the world’s most influential tech products such as the VCR (1970), CD player and camcorder (1981), DVD (1996, HDTV (1998) and the Microsoft XBOX in 2001.

How can social media be used in the classroom?

Social media can be a daunting prospect but it doesn’t have to be. In this article we offer a good-practice guide to managing your school Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest accounts.

The use of new communicative technologies remains a topic of wide debate with both arguments for and against.