Learning with Social Media and Games

Benefits of Social Networking and Gaming in the Classroom

Teachers should use games and social networking skills in the classroom because our students are using these activities outside of school. We can use these skills to teach them how to communicate in our modern climate and use games to teach a wide variety of content.

Using games in the classroom encourages problem solving and inquiry based thinking by delivering real-world and authentic problems to students. When students understand the importance and relevance of a task, they are more likely to engage in the problem solving and learning. 21st century learners thrive on solving real-world problems, such as those presented in video games. These games ask students to question, predict, test theories, and revise ideas after they have tested their theory in order to improve results.

Using games in the classroom helps students become computational thinkers. This does not necessarily mean they learn about computer skills though. Students learn how to process data when solving the problems presented to them, create models and examples to demonstrate how to solve the given problem, design systems in order to solve problems, and then begin to better understand human behavior.

A way to engage students in learning could be through a classroom blog, such as Seesaw , Blogger, or a Google Site. Students would be in charge of creating the posts and participating in conversation through comments. Students would effectively become teachers among their peers, which is the highest form of engagement. Students would also engage as they would be held accountable to each other, and that often creates a higher work ethic on assignments.

We would serve our students well by utilizing tools they already know how to use, and integrating our curriculum and digital citizenship standards we desire our students to know.

Benefits of Social Networking and Gaming in School

Teachers can engage with other teachers and educators around the world by creating a Professional Learning Network (PLN) on most social media sites and engage in dialogue to create learning for all students. Twitter provides real-time interaction with other educators all over the globe. It allows for discussion to flow easily allowing for more ideas. Many schools have created a school-wide Twitter account to share the great learning that is happening there.

On Twitter, you can focus your PLN on whatever your specific interests are as a teacher. I follow other teachers at my school, fellow second grade teachers across the nation, and many ed-tech coaches as these are my main interests as a teacher. It is a great way to get free professional development and build a community from which to learn from. You can also choose to follow certain hashtags (topics), such as #remotelearning, #edchat and #edtech.

Students will encounter real world problems and social media in their daily life. Teachers have the responsibility to prepare students to enter the 21st century workforce. A large part of the work expectations is interacting with others online. Many employees are expected to host their own Twitter links to help market the brand of their business. Teaching students how to use social media to share information well is a skill they will use throughout their professional life. Students can start to learn these skills on a classroom or school blog, or offer ideas on what should be included on the school social media accounts.

Teaching Activities

Teachers have many opportunities to use social media and games to encourage student learning.

For example, a teacher can create a class wiki that the students all contribute to. When creating a class wiki, the teacher has a great responsibility to set up expectations for the wiki, or otherwise the information changes too quickly and the teacher does not have to evaluate what students post. Teachers must always set the expectation for what students are to produce or post in work. This helps set the student up for success with clear directions and learning outcomes. It also helps the student to self-assess if they have been successful or not.

Another useful tool is creating voice threads, especially for asynchronous learning. It is a useful tool to allow students to share their learning with each other. On Flipgrid students create a short video (up to 90 seconds) in order to respond to a prompt posted by the teacher. Students can respond to each other's posts as well. Teachers can also upload exemplars to the thread. Students enjoy using Flipgrid as they can add filters and stickers to their video.

Teaching problem solving through real-world situations presented in some video games helps students become more effective and more efficient problem solvers. Students must be taught how to solve problems well in order to be successful. Students must first understand what the problem is asking--what type of problem is it, what do I already know about the problem, and what else do I need to know to solve this problem. Students should also be taught problem solving strategies and the importance for perseverance and ambiguity when finding solutions to problems. In real life, our problems are not written by a perfect formula with a straightforward way to answer them, so we must teach students how to handle problem solving in less than ideal situations.

Ethics

Student safety must be at the forefront of all concerns in the classroom. Teachers ought to be mindful of what websites they have students access in class. Many social media sites allow anyone to post any content they would like to the site. Teachers and districts may not control what students can access when on those sites. Inappropriate material may surface, even when firewalls and filters are in place. Teachers should be careful on which sites they require students to use. Some helpful resources are posted above, such as Common Sense Media and ESRB Rating information.

If teachers want students to interact online, they can create a secure site or blog on which students can practice digital citizenship skills through online communication. Teachers can host sites that are password protected and teach students effective ways to create posts and respond with comments.

Students must learn about digital citizenship and be presented with clear guidelines about what is allowed when on social media and video games in the classroom. Students need to have clear expectations clearly posted in the classroom, so that they are able to reference them while they are engaging in these sites.

Teachers must be aware of student privacy as well when posting online. Teachers should not include students names or any other personal identification information online. It would also be beneficial for the school to receive a "media release" permission slip for all students to make sure all families are OK with their child's picture being posted online.

This page created as a part of the requirements for TEC 520 Digital Literacies and New Media.

References

MacBride, R., & Luehmann, A. L. (2008). Capitalizing on emerging technologies: a case study of classroom blogging. School Science and Mathematics, 5, 173.

Maloy, R., Verock-O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2017). Transforming learning with new technologies. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Yammouni, David (2014). Social Media for Learning Design. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=FRX8d6cFoFI&feature=emb_title on May 26, 2020.