Revisiting Teens, Social Media, and Education

One thing that stands out from recent articles I have read and conversations with my niece is that there is a large percent of teenagers that do not want social media to intersect with school. In a recent study 39% of students were against the idea (Crook, 2012). It makes sense. While teens will post most anything to sites like Instagram and Snapchat. They can control what they produce and the audience who can access it. In an educational setting, students do not chose their classmates. Fear of looking stupid or being ridiculed for the content they contribute, were common reasons students shared for keeping social media out of the classroom (Crook, 2012). My niece just said she thought it would be weird because Instagram and Snapchat were personal. (She hesitated to give my her Snapchat when she was first teaching me how to use it.)

So, here are a few of my ideas (after a six-week adventure into Web 2.0) regarding secondary education and social media use. Allowing the learning objective to direct which tools to chose is most important (i.e., Don't use social media just because you think it is cool.). Also, choosing the right social media tools to introduce is the key to successful integration and student use of the tools. Use tools that are novel to students (e.g., Storify, Blogger) or whose purpose is more educational in nature (e.g., Kahoot!, Quizlet). Doing so may make the use of social media feel less like an invasion of privacy to students. One thing my adventure in Web 2.0 has taught me is that there are more tools out there than I could ever imagine, and so many I still need to explore. My definition of social media is no longer limited to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Also, consider group work as a possibility when the main focus of social media use is content creation. This allows for collective authorship, which may help students feel less vulnerable.

What do you think is most important for effective social media use in secondary education?

Crook, C. (2012). The 'digital native' in context: Tensions associated with importing web 2.0 practices into school setting. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 63-80. doi:10.1080/03054985.2011.577946