Emerging technologies are quickly gaining momentum in the field of virtual K-12 instruction. In this course, we will explore how the latest trends in the use of technology affect student learning and engagement. What innovative learning spaces and tools are available to instructors? How can instructors best utilize free and open resources to more deeply engage students in their learning? What impact can the use of emerging technologies have on student retention and performance? We will discuss the possibilities and challenges of using technology in fully online environments, although many of the ideas can be applied to blended and traditional environments as well. Learners will compare and contrast tools for use in K-12 virtual instruction, as well as examine best practices for implementing and managing these tools. Upon completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Understand the role of technology in the distribution of content, the facilitation of collaborative activities, and the assessment of students, courses, and organizations. 2. Identify and evaluate existing and emerging technologies for their value in virtual course instruction and curriculum development. 3. Design and assess a learning activity that utilizes social learning tools. 4. Design and assess a learning activity or curricular program that uses game-based strategies and/or badges to deepen student engagement in virtual courses. 5. Research, critically evaluate, and employ open content in virtual education. 6. Debate the role of MOOCs in virtual K-12 education.
Week 2: Social Tools Overview
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From the course by University of California, Irvine
Emerging Trends & Technologies in the Virtual K-12 Classroom
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From the lesson
Week 2: Social Technologies in Virtual Education
In week two, we will explore collaborative and social learning technologies.
Meet the Instructors
Melissa Joell Loble, M.A., MBAInstructor
UC Irvine Extension
Welcome to Module 2, Social Tools Overview.
In this session we're going to talk about the broader use of social networking
technologies in K12 virtual education, and begin to explore strategies for
how to use them.
This module is separate from a second module which we'll
dig into lesson examples using very specific social networking technologies.
I am going to assume though, going into this module, that you are looking
to implement virtual teaching, so teaching at a complete distance,
or at least fairly blended, and that you're working with students 13 and older.
I apologize for my teachers out there that are taking this course that work with
students younger than 13.
But the trick, as we all know, with social networking technologies
is legally you need to be 13 or older to participate in the majority of them.
There are some out there that are specific to younger kids,
but they're not really social tools per se.
I would say, a lot of times,
they fall more into the games category and we'll talk about them later on.
But yes, this really is about students that are 13 and older in most cases.
Now in some of these technologies that we'll talk about, and as you can see here
you're going to see a list of social networking and sharing tools out there.
In some of these, there are ways to get private licenses for
your school or district, and so you might want to investigate that
if you're really interested in doing this with younger children.
I do know that there are kids under 13 that are using things like Twitter and
Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram.
But, in order to really support this in an effective and secure way for your
students, I do encourage you to stick to the 13 years or older, at least in the US.
I know in some other countries there might even be older age restrictions.
Now, you know your social networking technologies, the Twitters and
the Facebooks.
You also have tools that support blogs and wikis, things like a Tumblr, or
a Blogger, or Wordpress, or Wikispace.
These I would also categorize as social networking tools or social technologies.
Because they're about social content creation or
social feedback generation or even crowdsourcing around content.
And so, we're going to lump all of these together as we think about how we may use
social technologies in our K-12 virtual classroom.
So when might you want to use a social networking technology and
when would it be good to use one?
I highly encourage you to only use a social technology when
you've personally used it.
You don't necessarily have to have used it in a professional environment, but
you personally should be experienced with it.
Because as you'll learn, and as we all know, they all have their differing style.
And they all have their strengths and weaknesses, or the areas where you
could get in trouble in how you might want to use it, not official trouble.
But it might be difficult for you to use it with students,
because of some of the stylistic approaches to that technology.
So it's definitely something that you should have used.
You should also be fluent in all of the privacy statements and terms of use.
Make sure, because the majority of these social networking technologies
are cloud-based, they are public with private spaces.
You can have private spaces in them.
And I made sure to only address the ones that are available for private spaces.
You still want to be completely fluent in privacy.
Because you want to make sure you understand what your students are signing
up for and make sure that the data privacy associated
with these technologies maps what your school or district requires.
So make sure you're fluent in that.
You also want to make sure that there's a a real learning objective behind using it.
Often I hear from teachers, I really want to figure out how to use Facebook,
because students are always on Facebook.
That's not necessarily a good reason to use it.
A good reason would be I need to find a way where I can regularly communicate
with my students how the scientific world impacts our everyday lives.
And so I'm going to post on Facebook every single day a post for
my students in a private group, where they can see something around them and
I'm reflecting on the science in that.
That's a great use of a Facebook as opposed to I want to use Facebook because
everybody's in Facebook.
So you want to make sure there's a clear learning objective that's measurable
that is purposeful with social interaction.
That there's not a better way or a better technology to use it,
it's actually a social activity.
So if you're thinking about that teacher that's
posting a picture of how science impacts their world, one every day, and
then all the students commenting on that, that's a social activity.
And a social technology fits that really nicely.
You also want to make sure that with that learning objective that
it's better designed that way, than it would be in any other environment.
Is it better to post that picture,
that science picture, to a private Facebook group for your students to see
as opposed to an asynchronous discussion in your learning management system?
Or as opposed to a short video that you take,
that you post to students everyday in your learning environment.
You also want to make sure it's age appropriate.
Some tools, even though it's 13 and up, are better for the 13-year-olds and
some are better for the 18-year-olds.
So you want to think about what's age appropriate or even older than that.
So for example, Instagram tends to relate to the younger range of the 13 and up.
And things like Pinterest, I don't know if you're students have ever probably used
Pinterest, although they could.
They may have.
But not a lot of kids use Pinterest, but it can be a really valuable social tool.
So think about how age appropriate it is and
how experienced your students might be with those technologies.
And then finally, you want to make sure you have really, really great examples and
you want to be able to take those examples and translate them for students, so
that they can see.
What is a good post?
What is good interaction?
How are we going to be using this?
Why is this valuable?
Be as explicit about that as possible for students so they get a sense of,
okay I understand the behavior from a learning perspective that I should be
exhibiting in using one of these technologies.
Especially if it's a technology they use in their personal lives.
And then last, make sure that you use any of these technologies,
least this is my recommendation, in a finite amount of time.
And I say that because if we leave something open ended,
like post to Facebook whenever you see something cool that science related.
If students feel as though there isn't a need to do it right away,
or if they feel like it's kind of never ending,
they're going to eventually drop off in engagement.
But if you make something finite in time,
okay, this next month is about science in our everyday lives.
I encourage everybody to post every day a picture that relates to science
in your life.
And then comment on how it relates to that.
Once a month you can have a challenge.
You can make it a game, who's posted how many pictures, who's commented.
You can do fun things with that.
And it's finite in time and it keeps them engaged.
Now when not?
Or when should you avoid using a social technology?
Definitely I would suggest not using a social technology when it requires
students to publicly share any of their contact or personal information.
Now you can use one and I've seen teachers do this great where students can
voluntarily share and get feedback from people beyond the students in their class.
But requiring that puts your students at a risk and
it's challenging oftentimes with parents.
because parents have differing values on when and how their kids should use social
technologies and you don't want to disrupt those necessarily.
So, avoid it when you have to publicly share content.
It's okay if it's optional.
And you probably want to avoid it when there's mixing.
So if you're going to have students use Facebook for example,
they probably use it personally, maybe not though,
it's starting to get less trendy with our younger kids.
But let's say they are using it personally.
If they are, you want to have a clear separate group or space in Facebook for
students to interact so that their social and their personal aren't mixing.
So that you can't possibly have some sort of weirdness happen with what your
students might be sharing personally versus in a learning environment.
Same holds true for you.
[LAUGH] A funny story that a teacher told me, maybe not so funny is they
weren't careful with where they posted a post about a family vacation.
It was a safe post.
But, they posted a post about a family vacation that wasn't meant for
their students that all their students got.
Because, it was so easy to accidentally do that.
So, be careful when you're using the social technologies or
don't use one when you could easily make that mistake.
You also want to be really careful when technologies are limited to specific
devices because not all students may be working from those particular devices.
So make sure that if you're using a social technology in particular it works across
platforms or devices that your students may have.
And of course, and this goes without saying, you want to make sure that
you are not using a social technology when it actually does not improve results.
And I say this not because it's obvious, but
because you should want to make sure that you're evaluating
how well did using that social technology actually improve results.
Question yourself, and ask your students and monitor their work,
to make sure it's having the right impact.
Now, the last thing that I will say that you may want to be careful of,
it may not be a reason not to use social technologies, but
you want to be careful of, is parent involvement.
I actually suggest that you let your parents know upfront.
Either at a parent night, or in an email, or
however you communicate with your parents, that you are having students
use a particular social technology in a specific way.
Because like I said before,
some parents have very specific values around how kids should be participating.
How their children should use those tools, and
you want to make sure that it's not conflicting with that.
Or that parents understand that it's not just about being social or play but
there's real learning value behind what they're doing.
Now how about effectiveness?
How effective or
how can you be most effective in utilizing these social technologies?
First and foremost, I encourage you to use them for more than just text.
Now, in Twitter it's text, and we'll talk about that, but
where you can bring in visual, video, photos.
It can be enriching.
It's a better use of a social technology and you want to make sure that that
use of that technology matches the style of that technology.
So it make sense in a Facebook environment to maybe have a little more thoughtful,
multimedia-rich posts.
In a Twitter environment it's short, 140 characters or less comments.
And that might make more sense in a question answer or
a brainstorming session.
You do want to still keep it social.
So the fun part about social technologies is they're social.
So make sure you're creating activities where
it makes a difference that students interact with each other and socialize.
And then it's not something that students could do individually but
you're now suddenly having them use that social technology for.
And finally, as I mentioned before, be careful with devices.
Most social technologies are easier with mobile, so
make sure that your students have access to mobile devices if it makes sense.
Things like, especially if you want to try to take pictures or videos or
just in moment kind of activities, it makes sense to have a tablet or a phone or
some kind of mobile device for that.
So I encourage you to make sure that students have access to that
technology and to take advantage of that.
Last, make sure that you're encouraging of students.
And that just as you would be with a synchronous or an asynchronous discussion,
that you promote an understanding, and
a collaboration, and a community sense among your students.
And that it's not about this either competition or
who's right or who's wrong environment.
But it's about the community and the interaction and
encourage that as best you can.
Part of that will be making sure that students feel like they have
an opportunity to be creative and to be personal and to reflect.
So build that in.
Now what about efficiency?
So I often get asked, [LAUGH] okay, I'm going to do this but
I can't keep up with it.
How do I keep up with all these hundreds of posts or
do I have to respond to everything?
And the question is no, you don't have to respond and
you can crowdsource your support.
So if students are having issues with
material in your class or if they're having issues with the technology itself,
get them to help each other and to use that tool in that way.
Step back and wait for
somebody else to respond before you're the first to jump in there and respond.
Make sure you separate personal and school, and we talked about that.
And then make sure that you are visible but make that visibility short and
frequent as opposed to long and once a week.
So, you want to be in there often but be in there for very short periods of time.
And be consistent and be explicit with your students when and
how you will respond or engage or
participate in those social communities that you're encouraging.
Last, use technologies out there that are your friends,
like subscription technologies, filtering and aggregation technologies.
Things like a Hootsuite,
where you can get all of your social technologies in one space.
Find the best that work for you, so that you don't feel like you're constantly
strapped to checking all sorts of different environments, especially if
you're using multiple environments, but that you keep it all together.
And on our resources list for this week I have a number of those good
aggregation and filtering resources for you.
Now let's think about what we've just talked about, and
how it might impact your own teaching.
So let's say you've decided to have your students use blogs.
Maybe you teach a writing class, or a class that's more oriented
towards writing essays or original work.
So let's say you're doing that, and you want students to use blogs as a way to get
feedback in the development process of their writing.
What would you want to make sure you do?
And what would you want to make sure you avoid?
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