Blog #5 - Social Media

What is a teacher’s primary goal? To be the sage on the stage who craftily pieces lectures together in hopes to magically impart information into student’s brains through osmosis. Or is it to be the guide on the side, who orchestrates a learning environment from which students have the opportunity to create, explore, think, collaborate, act, achieve, and learn. Of all the new trends in this digital age the one that has the greatest possibility to change the landscape of education is social media. With the ability of the Internet and Web 2.0 students have access to people and organizations that can help them learn more about any given topic in the classroom than their textbook or their teacher alone. All other new technologies basically boil down to some great tools that can be used in the classroom to help motivate learning and make some processes easier. They don’t really change the dynamic of the classroom. Social median however, is a game changer. It is an opportunity to move from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered classroom.

The following video is rather long but very informative on social media. (You may need to download Microsoft's Silverlight to watch this video.)

Who is going to have the hardest time with this type of change in education? Teachers. Many teachers feel like they are going to lose control of their classroom. They aren’t losing control, control is still kept by the teacher, but more importantly the control is also given to the student. “A student-centered classroom isn’t a place where the student decides what they want to learn and what they want to do. It’s a place where we consider the needs of the students, as a group and as individuals, and encourage them to participate in the learning process all the time. The teacher’s role is more that of a facilitator than instructor; the students are active participants in the learning process. The teachers (and textbook) help to guide the students, manage their activities, and direct their learning” (Jones, 2007). Social media will be one of the greatest assets to the student-centered classroom.

Jones, L. (2007). The student-centered classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press.