Social Media Tools

This is my first ever blog entry!  I am really excited about beginning a blog and I hope that I will be inspired (along my ICT elective journey and through my own independent research) with a greater knowledge and understanding of how I can implement effective ICT in the primary school through the curriculum for excellence.  I look forward to seeing myself learn and grow through these experiences and I am eager to compare my final blog post to this very first one.  Here goes…

Today we focused on the use of social media tools in the 21^st century, communities of practice and Meredith Belbin’s team roles.

There are numerous different examples of social media tools that are widely used across the world today.  For example: facebook, emailing, text messaging, you tube, twitter, skype, blogging, the list goes on.  Today I learned that these social media tools can be grouped into two categories: a synthesis and synthesis.  A synthesis is when a response does not take place immediately.  For example, during an email conversation it may take minutes, hours or even days before a response is given.  Synthesis social media tools allow instant communication to take place.  For example, during a skype conversation both participants are receiving and responding at the exact same time.  Facebook is an exception, along with a few others, where it is both an a synthesis and synthesis type of social media tool as instant communication can take place through the chat feature, but also people can post on one another’s wall which is treated similar to an email.  

I believe that both types of social media tools can be and should be used effectively in the primary classroom as they allow valuable learning and sharing to take place.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of social media tools but it depends on what purpose you are using the social media tool for to determine whether it will be an advantage or disadvantage to you and your chosen learning.  I think it is extremely important when deciding which social media tool to use that you make sure it is relevant to the task as this will allow the desired learning to take place more effectively.  For example, if the children were in communication with another school (doing a bear exchange) I think it would be more appropriate to choose an a synthesis social media tool such as emailing and blogging to communicate for the most part, as it is unlikely that both classes would always be progressing at the same pace and ready to communicate at the same time.  However, through emailing and blogging, the children could organise to use an a synthesis social media tool such as skype.

In order for children to achieve greater depth in their learning, I believe a synthesis social media tools would be useful.  For example, if the children were communicating with another school (doing a bear exchange) through emails and blogs, due to the nature of these social media tools the children have time between sharing information to learn more about what they might want to share with the other school.  For example, if the children at the other school were to ask questions about what the children had shared with them in their blog post, the children would then have time to research and deepen their own knowledge and understanding in the search for answers to the other children’s questions.

References

Scottish Government (2008). Curriculum for Excellence: Principles for curriculum design. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

Available:http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/howisthecurriculumstructured/principles/index.asp  [Last accessed: 10.2.12]