Social Networking for Good

First of all, I’d like to say that I love Facebook.  I move around a lot, and it has been a great way to keep up with all of my friends and family who live far away.  For many people, sites like Facebook and Twitter are simply places to network socially.  They provide a simple way to share with the world the answer to “What’s on your mind?”.  There are plenty of ways we can change how we use social media for more than simply finding out what your friends are doing.  In the past few years, educators have begun to embrace the collaborative value of these social networking sites with resource sharing, groups, and weekly Twitter “chats” (like #edchat) for all different educational topics.  Instead of using these sites purely for fun and entertainment, teachers are including some very valuable professional development time while they network.  Using social media in the classroom can introduce the importance of this type of collaboration and sharing to students.

Twitter and Facebook are just 2 examples of the social media tools available to teachers (depending on the privacy settings on your school network).  Many teachers use blogging, class wikis, and video conferencing tools like Skype for collaboration.  Some other sites suggested by educators in a recent #edchat conversation are Thinkquest, Ning, and edmodo.  This list could go on and on, but instead of listing specific tools to use, I want to discuss the benefits of using social media at school in the first place.  Please continue the conversation on our Facebook and Twitter pages to share suggestions and ideas.

One Kaiser study found that most school-age children spend more than 6 hours a day interacting with electronic media.  Much of this time is spent passively consuming, not creating content.  A goal for including social media in the classroom is to improve this time already spent in a digital environment.  Instead of simply taking in information and viewpoints, we want to teach students to analyze what they see and contribute to the conversation by creating well-crafted responses of their own.  Understanding this goal might alleviate some parent and teacher’s valid concerns about using social media in the school setting.

In 21^st century education, students shouldn’t be learning about the world, they should be learning as they interact with the world.  The Internet and social media tools have given students unprecedented access to the thoughts and ideas of people across the globe.  Memorizing and repeating facts will no longer be the hallmark of a successful learner.  Digesting these facts and synthesizing them with other knowledge to create something new is the ultimate goal.  Every student should have easy access to the facts, and 21^st century teachers will guide their students to filter and analyze these facts so and contribute to the world by sharing new knowledge they have created.  What will this look like in the classroom?  It can be a real-life project where your students collaborate with students from around the planet to solve a problem.  This is an excellent example of authentic learning.

Social media can allow our students to reach out to other learners in new and exciting ways.  Instead of reading about Africa in a textbook, writing a report, and possibly presenting the information to the class, your students have a chance to do something bigger.  Maybe you can help them actually communicate with a student in Africa through Skype, Facebook, or Twitter.  Instead of a report, they could create a video about the country to post to YouTube, reaching a much wider audience than a classroom presentation.  They could even create a wiki to collaborate and share ideas with kids in Africa, a kind of 21^st century pen pal program!  There are many other web 2.0 tools that good ways for students to share information.  Check out our  previous posts for some examples.

Service learning is an important aspect of education.  Students need to understand that they are capable of changing their communities and the world.  In my days as a student, service learning included projects like volunteering at a local nursing home, collecting food for the food bank, or being involved in a community clean-up event.  While these types of service projects are still a vital part of education and an important part of being a contributing member of society, students can build on this type of service and use social media to make their voices heard. From kindergarten on, students can create multimedia projects to educate others and make a difference in the world around them.

This is just an overview of the topic, and I am really excited to write more posts with examples of how social media can benefit our students and our communities.  I hope that more of us can take the time and energy to include a component of social media in our classrooms.  If you have ideas, questions, or examples of social media in education, please don’t hesitate to post them on our Gateway Facebook and Twitter pages.  We love to hear what you want us to write about!


~Peggy's Corner - 8/18/2011~

EXTRA! EXTRA! Student Reporters Dig Into Tsunamis

With all of the news coverage of the recent tsunami and its aftermath in Japan, many teachers are looking for ways to explain the phenomenon to their students. Students are seeing videos and pictures of the devastation in Japan, and many of them don’t completely understand the science behind this type of weather disaster. This lack of understanding can lead to fear in students (and teachers) of all ages. Joann has been collecting resources for The Gateway to help teach students about tsunamis. The resources she is featuring in her column and social media posts this week look at tsunamis from many different angles. She has found a really nice variety of resources, and I really like the way they integrate the study of tsunamis into subjects ranging from art to science.

It was hard for me to pick out my favorite activities to use in the classroom. These are all great stand-alone resources, but there are so many different aspects of tsunamis that might spark students’ interests, I thought it would be neat to allow students to choose which angle of tsunamis they want to study. To allow this choice, I needed to figure out how to combine ideas from lots of Joann’s picks into one activity. I wanted to create an activity that could be adapted for many different age groups and that would appeal to students with a wide range of interests. It would include creative and critical thinking and it would involve students teaching others about what they learned, the best form of learning in my opinion.

Tsunami News Broadcast

In this activity, students will create news broadcasts to explain tsunamis to a selected audience. You might choose a group of younger students, other students in the class, or parents as the audience. Students could present their newscasts live, as a video, as an audio podcast, a glog, or you might want to give them the choice of creating a newspaper to present.

Choose four to six tsunami-related topics. (I did this by looking at the topics covered in this week’s featured resources on The Gateway.) Create a list of these topics to distribute to small groups of students with a few suggested links or research ideas for each topic. Explain to the students that they are a news team responsible for creating a news broadcast covering a few different aspects of tsunamis to help their viewers better understand the crisis in Japan.

I have found that it is very beneficial to let students teach one another, and this is a fun, creative way for students to do that. One strength of this type of activity is that it allows the students to make choices. If you select 6 possible topics, students could choose 4 of those topics to cover in their news broadcast. This way, they are spending their time researching things that interest them the most.

The following is a list of topic ideas for students to include in their broadcasts. There are many more possibilities, so have fun and use your imagination!

The science of a tsunami: If students understand the science behind a tsunami, their fears of a similar event occurring near them might be alleviated. Look at resources like this to find out what causes these giant waves and to get ideas for visual representations to use in a news broadcast. The NSTA also collected some good resources and here are the top 3 sites from Free Technology for Teachers.

Fact v. Fiction: Students will need to use critical thinking to determine whether the things they see in the media are true or false. Look here to help students create a section of the broadcast devoted to how to decide what is real. This is especially important when looking at the reports about the nuclear reactors. This lesson from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission explains a lot about how nuclear power works.

History of Tsunamis: There have been other major tsunamis throughout history. How do those tsunamis compare to the recent event in Japan? Here is an example of the type of resource that might be useful for this topic.

Survivor studies: A study of the stories of survivors might give them empathy for the people affected by the disaster. Look at sites like this to find some stories of survivors of natural disasters to include in a broadcast.

Making a Difference: A service project with the goal of helping tsunami victims could give people a sense of a purpose instead of fear. What can students do to help? Discuss ideas that have been implemented or that students could implement to help tsunami victims. See lessons like this and others from LearningToGive.org for some ideas.

Will it Happen To Me? Reading Rockets collected resources to help students understand tsunamis and whether or not one might occur near their home. Students might want to dedicate a section of their broadcast to this topic.

This is just a beginning of a plan. You might have some better ideas, and if you do, we would love for you to share! Join us on Facebook and Twitter to learn even more. We will share any presentations, podcasts, glogs, or pictures you share with us to inspire other teachers to discuss this important topic in the classroom.

~Peggy's Corner - 4/8/2010~

Kids Who Care – Community Service in the Classroom

Developing responsible and productive members of society is one of the main goals of education. Teachers work very hard to engage their students and make them experts in each particular subject area, but it is important for us all to step back and look at the big picture of our students’ development from time to time. We are subject area teachers, but we are also in charge of working with other teachers and parents to instill values and motivation in our students that will carry them through the rest of their lives.

As a seventh grade student, I was assigned a semester-long community service project in my social studies class. Students were allowed to choose just about any type of community service, and many of us found projects that we really enjoyed. I volunteered in a nursing home helping out with activities and interviewing residents for a monthly newsletter that I wrote and published with a friend. I remember my hours of service that year, and I think back to the rewards often as I try to fit in volunteering in this hectic schedule I call life as an adult. Students of all ages can benefit from this type of community service, and the public will benefit, too!

The Gateway to 21st Century Skills has an extensive collection of lesson plans, activities, and units focusing on civics and character education. Searching for community service led me to some great units for students of all ages. One unit I liked was a three-lesson community service unit for 6th-8th grade students called ECHO, ECHO, ECHO: Each Can Help Others. The lessons include persuasive speeches and students’ commitments to philanthropy in one of three different areas outlined in the unit. Middle school students could also benefit from The Social Action Project, a hands-on service project to teach students more about civic responsibility. In this unit, students will be able to choose a social issue that interests them, find an organization that deals with that issue, volunteer for that organization, and create a presentation about their experience. Along with teaching about philanthropy and community service, units like these help students develop their presentation and public speaking skills.

Middle school (or junior high…depending on where you live) is a wonderful time to introduce a topic like civic responsibility. Students are going through a lot of changes in their lives and trying to figure out what kind of people they are and what kind people they want to become. The first two units focused on that age group, but it’s never too early to start teaching kids that they are part of a community and that they are big enough to make a difference. Living in a Community is a K-2nd unit of 5 lessons that teaches students about the community in their classroom and in the bigger world around them. It helps to show them why it is important to take responsibility and help out in this community. Protect Your Melon is a unit for the same age group that emphasizes one community issue: bicycle safety. The unit introduces the vocabulary and ideas of philanthropy and allows students to help create their own bicycle safety program for their community, including a fundraising drive to raise money and donate helmets to children. Students get work together for a common goal, which will hopefully be very motivating for them. They also get to see the effect of their project when they see how many helmets they are able to afford.

If you are looking for community service activities for 3rd-5th graders, start with Time, Talent, Treasure and Economics. This unit allows students to choose one of 3 quilt-making projects. The students participate in the project by giving their time and talents to create a quilt for others in need. This is a good example of combining community service with creativity and art education.

All of the activities I have highlighted above are from http://www.learningtogive.org/ . This is just a sampling of the activities from Learning to Give and other sources that are catalogued on The Gateway to help you bring philanthropy and civic education into your classroom. Please check out both sites to find more activities to meet your needs.

~Peggy's Corner - 11/25/2010~