Activity 7: Social media in learning and teaching and professional development.

How do/would I use social media to enhance my professional
development?

The choice of social media, e.g. Wordpress, Twitter and Facebook can lead some to information overload. 

NZACDITT logo

NZACDITT site & Google group
I have been involved with the Computing listserve since 2009, which is now a Google group which I have to subscribe to annually: NZACDITT.org.nz

I find the discussion interesting and valuable, however, I initially found the emails I received over whelming so I discontinued receiving email alerts in favour of a daily summary. I like how you can read back over the threads, which are also searchable. It has vibrant discussion between digital technology teachers across New Zealand who happily share, contribute, ask for help and support each other. Other subject area teachers do not seem to have this collaborative collegiality.

CSTA Blog

CSTA logo

I have been a member of CSTA for four years. This organisation puts out an email newsletter of latest industry and education news. Whilst it is focussed on the US, most of the issues raised are relevant. The discussion boards allow teachers and administrators to pose questions and discuss the relative benefits of a range of new courses and resources. It was here that I first discovered the Hour of Code resources from Code.org which I have used for my own professional development as well as introducing them to my students in introductory classes.

Twitter:

I have subscribed to Twitter. My handle is @mharrisonict
I have used Tweetdeck.com on my laptop to help organise my posts and threads.

I have found that I have been able to share good resources easily with a range of people on computer science, tutorials, 3D printing and animation technology. 

I have mixed feeling about Twitter, partially because there is a lot of people using it for spam. However, interesting and eclectic tweets have led me to diversify my reading of latest cutting edge content in 3D printing and coding.

I have used Twitter to pass on links to resources such as mobile app development and web coding to a chap in Africa who wants to use the technology to learn new skills and transform his circumstances. This is an admirable use of Twitter, I think.

I dislike the asinine use of self aggrandizing posts and I also dislike the inane retweets. There seem to be a lot of BOT accounts that are paid to boost profiles.

What are some key features of social media that you have identified as beneficial for teaching and learning? 

Some of the obvious benefits of social media used appropriately for teaching and learning are:

• it is immediate, mobile, asynchronous and available 24/7, so students / whanau can access content at a time and place which suits them
• wide ranging - experts from across the net can contribute to a discussion via specialist forums
• able to involve the whanau and wider community in authentic learning contexts.
• Multimedia Content can be reviewed multiple times

What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware ofwhen integrating social networking platforms into teachingactivities?

Facebook vs Moodle:

I use FB to follow interesting groups as I do on Twitter, but following Netsafe advice and school policy I keep all of my personal social media persona separate from my work persona. I prefer to use FB to connect with whanau and friends, where as professional colleagues, maker pace tinkers etc use Twitter. I think it is a potential issue if teachers blur the lines between their work and family spaces becuase information taken out of context or an inside joke spread widely could be misconstrued. They say I didn't like the tone of your email, however, this is egregiously incorrect as text does not have an implied tone. The tone is always inferred by the reader's subjective point of view.

This is an important thing for teachers to consider in light of "safeguarding" issues. Students also need to be aware of appropriate behaviour and the risks of privacy / over sharing  / cyberbullying and grooming. Whilst it seems quite common for NZ schools to publish students' successes with photos, all too often it is possible to identify the students. This creates data protection and safeguarding issues. In the UK, where I was trained, schools had the policy of never publishing a photo of a child which identified them in case of inappropriate attention from paedophiles. Another consideration is the uploading of photos from smartphone. Many people are unaware than unless the settings have explicitly stopped GPS tagging then photos from staff/students may inadvertently reveal personal location information or metadata. Taken collectively this could be used to predict where someone lives, works or their typical route.

I teach students netiquette and digital citizenship and cybersafety. In addition to setting secure passwords, their Facebook privacy settings are also  oft overlooked or not understood. There is low levels of cyberbullying that I am aware of, which we deal with inside of school through restorative practice. As a school, we have an Acceptable Use Policy which outlines school wide expectations of the use of BYOD and school equipment. Currently FB is blocked by our filters because it is potentially highly distracting for staff and students and a compelling case for its inclusive has not yet been made.

In terms of comments and posts, a risk that needs to be managed is exposure to the net as a whole risks trolls and flaming. The closed garden of a closed FB group could be beneficial as most student have access to FB.  However, whilst there is some advantage to the school managing / maintaining their own closed group via Moodle  (e.g. seperation of work/personal spaces) that is also a drawback too. In my experience students access FB more frequently than they access the school LMS or Moodle. At the end of the year I audited the amount of time the students had collectively spent on my Moodle class page and it was less than the time I had spent afterschool in the evening setting up the pages, resources and self-marking activities.

LinkedIn
I have mixed feelings about LinkedIn. It really seems to be the Facebook for business people networking. Whilst it is probably very useful for recruiters to see the wider business communities opinion of you via endorsements. These endorsements are similiar to ebay / Trademe seller feedback. I expect that for many it improves their self-image and mana, and it can feel nice to receive such endorsements. However, I have a cultural reserve, being British, that means one does not like to brag and I expect kiwis do not appreciate 'tall poppies' who are 'up themselves'. So I do not feel comfortable putting too much information out there. Also I object to their business model of having to upgrade to a premium account to see who has looked at your profile. It seems seedy like some online dating site.

Wordpress vs Blogger
I am impressed with the ease of setup and customisation of Wordpress (the famous 5 minute installation). On the other hand I have opted to use Blogger because of the powerful  data analytics which Blogger offers. I was impressed with my daughter's intermediate school's use of students' writing portfolios. The students appreciated the public publishing platform which exposed their work to a global audience which included whanau from all arounf the world, such as a Grandmother in Spain, who were able to read and respond by leaving comments. This provided a massive motivational boost for students to improve their literacy and writing. However, I interviewed the teacher who said in hindsight they wished to move away from doing online writing portfolios because they felt they had spent too long on them and wanted the students to have a broader ICT experience than spend all their ipad time typing and editing.

What social media platform do you feel best supports engagement
with your professional development? Why?

Google+
Whilst Google+ has struggled to compete with FB I use them to seperate my work and personal social media. I think that social media aspects of Google+ & Google Classroom integrate well with Youtube and have clear pedagogical uses. I think that if used well the Google Apps for Education combos will best serve the teaching staff as a whole. This is because of the ease of setup, the interoperability and the current wealth of resources. This overcomes the setup overhead found which bespoke platforms and LMSs such as Moodle.

POND
I applaud the efforts of the POND however may of the 'resources' which are relevant to me are effectively reposts of other online material. I have been considerably underwhelmed by the POND and struggle to see why it won an award. Perhaps with time it will gain traction, but currently it is not worth my effort. If other staff feel this way then they may need to rethink their content creation model as they have teachers reuploading their resources which exist elsewhere in other formats.

Overall Evaluation

I do not think there is a 'best' platform, I think it depends on who is in your professional network and the current trends of who is using what. For that regard, I currently find Twitter very useful but there is a high signal to noise ratio, e.g. there is a lot of non-relevant stuff I have to scroll past because I have followed too many popular tags. I expect that if a school is using GAfE then their ease of use would mean that Google Classroom and Google+ would be best. However, Google+ cannot be used in a school with students under 13 years of age so that creates a technical / administrative task to setup different groups. Speaking personally, I found the Google Apps Admin was clunky because, whilst it allowed group uploads for account creation, it did not easily allow the use of CSVs for managing / deleting multiple users.  

References:
CSTA, 2015, csta.org
Netsafe (September 23, 2015) Digital Citizenship in schools. Retrieved from https://www.netsafe.org.nz/digital-citizenship-in-schools/ 
NZACDITT, 2015 nzacditt.org.nz
St Bernard's College, 2014. BYOD and Acceptable use policy, Retreived from http://www.sbc.school.nz/2014_Mailout/SBC-BYOD-Acceptable-Use.pdf

This post was in response to the Question: Create a blog post where you discuss your views on social media use in
learning and teaching and in professional development. The following
provocations can be used for your thoughts:

Provocations
● How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional
development?
● What are some key features of social media that you have
identified as beneficial for teaching and learning?
● What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of
when integrating social networking platforms into teaching
activities?
● What social media platform do you feel best supports engagement
with your professional development? Why?