Currently browsing Posts Tagged “social media”

Is social media unfit for academic purposes?

LittleSnapper

Posted by José Picardo on September 22, 2012

Students who have entered secondary education in the last two years can’t remember life before social media. Despite this, the schools tasked with their education often fail to grasp the important role that social media plays, not only in the private lives of their students, but also in the wider school community.

In this context, young people’s use of social media tends to be unfairly misrepresented and very unfavourably portrayed by schools and teachers who, perhaps, feel constrained by the circumstances and pressures in which they work and who might fear a loss of control leading to a capitulation to what they perceive as a preference for immediacy among the current generation of students. The overall conclusion is often that social media is a disruptive force which further erodes academic rigour and undermines the teacher’s traditional role and relevance, thus proving in the eyes of many sceptics that social media is unfit for academic purposes.

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The last laugh

Safari

Posted by José Picardo on August 18, 2012

A Level results came out last week. In a year which has seen the number of top grades reduced nationally for the first time in decades, Nottingham High school – my school – has seen, not only a continuing improvement, but its best results ever (72% A*-A), a feat that saw us move up to the top ten independent schools in the country.

In Spanish – the subject I teach and for which I am directly responsible – our results have also been our best ever (88% A*-A; 100% A*-B). Few of my students would have believed this possible at the beginning of Year 10, when they could barely say their names and where they lived with any confidence at all! Four years on, thanks to their hard work and dedication to the subject, they have done themselves – and me – very proud indeed.

It was during these four years that I began to research the transformational potential of social media and and ICT in general and to apply some of my findings to my teaching practice. Many fantastic things happened during those four years: my wife and I had another boy, my work in technology integration started to be recognised nationally and internationally, I was fortunate to be promoted to Head of Modern Foreign Languages and I gained a Masters Degree in ICT and Education.

However, during that time there have also been plenty of those who have questioned my approach for having the audacity to suggest that social media in general – and social networking in particular – could be harnessed by schools to be potentially beneficial to both teaching and learning.

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Our own worst enemies

20120717-205010.jpg

Posted by José Picardo on July 18, 2012

Language is a defining feature of people. We are unique in Nature in being able to turn physical objects and abstract concepts into words and thus share ideas1. The Internet provides our innate propensity for communication with means to engage in social interaction beyond the constraints of time and space, allowing us to engage in synchronous or asynchronous discussions that would be inconceivable otherwise.

The potential of this type of communication for education is already evident. Teachers and students had embraced blogs, online chats, fora and social networks to share and disseminate commonly interesting knowledge.

As a learner – and who isn’t? – blogging in particular has been instrumental in my own learning, which is continuously being constructed, modelled and re-modelled by reflecting on the social interaction provided by blogs such as this one and then feeding the newly constructed knowledge into further interaction, enabling me to learn in a divergent manner by providing the stimulus that allows me to pursue new ideas and explore new threads in a creative way2.

So far, so good. But there are some problems. Firstly, linguistic communication relies on a plethora of visual and non-verbal cues and clues – a slight change in intonation or the raising of an eyebrow – that are simply absent from computer mediated communication.

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An over-dose of scepticism

Safari

Posted by José Picardo on February 17, 2012

Languages, my own specialism, is a curriculum area which has traditionally spear-headed the use of innovative ICT and developed practice centred around its application in schools. Tape and then CD players, VHS recorders and DVD players have all been widely used, to great effect, in languages classrooms across the world.

Today, we would be hard-pressed to find teachers who would disparage the positive impact the application of such technologies has had in the field of languages teaching. Yet the introduction of these technologies was initially met with great scepticism, as they were deemed to be a distraction from real learning.

More recently, advances in computing and almost ubiquitous internet access have heralded the arrival of the next logical stage in the evolution of teaching and learning. New technologies are conjuring up new and innovative pedagogical practices and questioning traditional teaching and learning paradigms. For example, the application of these technologies allows us to depart from the convention that pupils must be at school in order for them to learn or be taught or for teachers to be able to assess their progress.

Yet, despite the huge pedagogical potential unquestionably present in the effective use of these technologies, many teachers still harbour considerable doubt as to technology’s utility in the teaching and learning context, remaining unconvinced of the benefits the web may be able to bring to their classrooms. It appears that sceptics – as they always have done and always will – attack the adoption of new technologies on the same, familiar grounds: they’re a distraction from real learning.

So, it begs the question: What exactly is real learning? In languages teaching, taking it again as a case in point, the definition of real learning has alternated over the last few decades: first there was a focus on grammatical rigour, then came an emphasis on communicative skills; first there were lists of words to be learnt, then came a focus on the skills needed to put those words together. What is certain, however, is that the essence of what real learning means to many teachers, of any specialism, hasn’t altered considerably: real learning occurs when the teacher is firmly in control1 and when tried and tested practices are used with which teachers are familiar.

This may go some way toward explaining why many teachers see the implementation of new technologies as a capitulation to what they perceive as a lack of discipline, absence of self-control and preference for immediacy among the current generation of students2 , establishing, in my view, a false dichotomy between technology implementation and academic rigour.

Teachers clearly remain split in their acceptance of the different educational paradigm new technologies provide us all. In the meantime, our students – for whom being online and participation in the social media environment are a by-product of living in the developed world3- look on at us in bemusement. We’re not – I think you would agree – providing them with a very edifying spectacle.

So, when does a healthy dose of scepticism become an over-dose?

What do you think? Conversations are always welcome.

Many thanks to Grumpy-Puddin for the fantastic picture

Model Behaviour

LittleSnapper

Posted by José Picardo on January 25, 2012

A former student of mine and an accomplished athlete (and linguist) got it touch with me yesterday via Twitter as ask me what I thought about Varsity Monitor, an American service that “monitors the social media interaction of athletes for questionable conduct that could negatively affect their athletic availability, hurt their future career & sponsorship opportunities, and damage the brand of their team, league & institution.”  Both he and I were appalled by the concept, but not really surprised.

Not really surprised because the approach taken by Varsity Monitor is similar to that seen in many schools up and down the country. Social media usage is a “problem” that must be dealt with. Schools often lack positive and organic policies governing, not just the abuse, as it is often solely the case, but the use of social media. Thus schools monitor social media but seldom teach children how to use them appropriately.

Both research and my own personal experience have shown me that students’ attitudes towards social media are overwhelmingly positive and that, when effectively utilised, social media allow our students to continue learning beyond the constraints of the school’s walls, expanding the learning environment to wherever the learner happens to be, acting as a bridge between school and home and between formal and informal learning.

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One Learning Environment

Safari

Posted by José Picardo on January 8, 2012

I have always felt drawn towards Vygotsky‘s socio-constructivist views on how learning comes about. He establishes that communication is critical to the development of thought and behaviour and puts forward the notion of the “zone of proximal development”1 or ZPD.

The ZPD is defined as the greater range of tasks that a child can complete with the guidance and assistance of others – be they adults or other children – as opposed to the tasks a child can complete independently.

Thus, according to socio-constructivist views, close contact between the learner and those within the ZPD helps individuals make sense of what is being learnt and stretches the learning beyond what any single student would have been able to construct in isolation.

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