Social networking has successfully seeped into the hands and minds of adolescents and adults alike, but has yet to permeate the educational culture due to a lack of research and use among teachers. Through social networking, students become active consumers of information in a collaborative setting that reflects continuous creating, sharing, and editing (Alvermann, 2008).
Classroom applications of social networking sites, such as Facebook, allow students to combine written text with pictures, hyperlinks, and other relevant websites as well as “remix” print texts to allow interaction among popular characters (Alvermann, 2008). In this light, instruction shifts from teacher-owned to student-centered because students are able to tap into more primary sources beyond subject areas to enrich and broaden their understandings (Alvermann, 2008). Check out this Creative Writing Lesson Plan using Facebook
Social networking sites transform literacy by changing the way we read and write text. The individualized paper and pencil days of writing can be enhanced with shared writing, editing, and critical thinking. Adolescents already have an online identity and educators need to remain open to the changes in literacy to help fortify and extend the literacy practices students already possess and value (Alvermann, 2008). In this light, teacher education programs need to restructure, or include, literacy training that allows teachers to feel comfortable using social networking sites in their instruction. The shift from the normative school culture has begun. Are you in or out?
I am in the middle. I do see how Facebook could be used to provide a voice to characters within a print text, post classroom updates and assignments, and provide school-home connection, but I worry about safety and the mundane that could potentially develop among students who just want to check on (or stalk) their friends and photos. Explicit explaining and modeling would have to be present in all aspects, as well as constant monitoring. As an English teacher, I do feel that reading and writing is becoming a dying art form with the explosion of the Internet and digital media but there is nothing like picking up a book to get lost in the pages or writing a heartfelt letter. I do not want my students to lose that. I am in the middle.
Hi Erin, I think it is natural for our generation to be “in the middle” on the idea of using social networking tools in the classroom. More so me, but we, grew up with more traditional print sources at our hands, not the Internet. I would argue, based on research and my own observations that traditional literacies remain predominate in our classrooms today. I think you mean here that you feel reading and writing, in the traditional sense, are becoming a dying art forms. Because, as we’ve read, kids are reading more today than they did in the past just it might be via social networks, blogs, wikis, etc. Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to the fb lesson plan. I was anti-facebook forever, and now I use it to keep in touch with my friends who have relocated all over the world. Finding ways to bring social networking into the classroom, in a format that students would be able to quickly get interested in, is always a bonus.
ReplyDeleteI agree that students are beginning to read and write in different ways than we did as middle and high school students. I also feel that while it is important for us to promote and further students use of web based technology, I also want to stress the beauty and pleasures of reading an actual, traditional, paper book.
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