![]() 2. Many are concerned about the use of social media in school. Describe your views of the pros and cons of using social media. How will you use this tool in your classroom and what are your greatest concerns in doing so? Social media is a tool that has allowed us to expand our knowledge of the world around us with access to millions of resources about our own hometowns or places across the whole world. As someone with family that lives in another country, social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat have allowed me to stay connected to my loved ones abroad. In respect to using these tools in the classroom, a teacher can deepen student knowledge in a more modern and engaging way. Social media opens the doors for communication and collaboration in a variety of ways. In a high school social studies classroom for example, Twitter is used to connect students to current events. In a second-grade classroom, tools such as Facebook and Remind are used to connect parents with the happenings of the classroom. A form of social media I have used in my classroom is Flipgrid. I utilize this platform to allow students to create video content to share and interact with their classmates, in a similar manner to YouTube but more student friendly. This also allows me to integrate the technology standards required by the state and school district. While social media has many benefits for classroom use, it also comes with its cons. This day and age, social media has become idolized by much of the younger generation as a basis for judging the popularity and success of others. Within my classroom, social media has not become a huge problem among my students unless that student has been heavily exposed by a sibling or older family member. Social media has become so relevant that even my seven-year-old students will be treated like outsiders if they are not up to date with the most current TikTok trends. This is concerning to me because social media topics often distract my students during their independent work time. When this social media talk happens, the kids that are excluded due to their lack of social media exposure often feel left out and are bullied during resource and enrichment times, as well as outside of the classroom. This can continue well into the future since it has to do with how a child is raised in their home life. Overall, social media can be a useful tool in the classroom, but it has to be used in moderation in order to avoid some of its uglier aspects. My Learning Experiences Creating the projects for the week consisted of a lot more communication than the previous week. My group members and I met 3 times via zoom while texting on a daily basis. Just like last time, we each utilized our specialized talents to divide the tasks amongst ourselves. We agreed that Teresa would help with the survey, Steven would create the document, William helped the group with the lesson plan, and I created the slide show while also providing knowledge of the 2nd grade classroom to the group. We each then collaborated to inset images and text to the Google Document and the Google slides. These projects were great exercises to show us how to work together in a collaboration of projects. The trickiest part for me was creating the podcast. Thinking of an idea for what to say was a bit overwhelming to me. There were so many 2nd grade math subjects I wanted to talk about. I decided to go with a guided activity students could listen to from home or even in the classroom centers. The activity consisted of me welcoming the students and reminding them of the vocabulary words we have been reviewing in class. I then had them do arm exercises that reminded them of the direction rows and columns go. From there, I had them making an array with rows and columns by specifically calling out the number of rows I wanted and how many squares I wanted in each row. I later provided examples doing the same exercise but with columns. The goal was for the podcast to be interactive and hands on. It was also made to help all types of learners whether kinesthetic, visual, or auditory. ![]()
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3 Comments
Steven Winters
6/27/2021 05:36:19 pm
Paulette, your experience within classroom social media presented a perspective that I was not aware of. I definitely agree that social media can be a powerful tool in the education space, but I typically only think of the common downfalls as data security and access to unsavory content and individuals. Your post gave me another concept to think about when utilizing social media in the education environment. Also, I agree with you that this week took a great deal more communication as there were more projects to coordinate.
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William Washington
6/27/2021 06:48:48 pm
Paulette,
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Teresa Washington
6/27/2021 07:17:28 pm
Paulette, I must agree with your statement about doing the podcast. I truly do not like the sound of my own voice. Also, I found myself trying to listen to the podcast as if I was a 2nd grader which I believe helped me to slow down when I talked. It enabled me to pace how I said certain things such as math problems so that the students can understand or see an emphasis on the math problems I was talking about. I enjoyed the podcast and the benefits of it, but I did so many revisions that my head is currently spinning.
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AuthorPaulette Vargas |