Monday, November 10, 2014



Education and Social Media

is like

Communication and Telephones



      Mimi Ito, above, talks about social media as a learning tool.





I just LOVE this week’s class assignment!  To me, it’s almost redundant to even ask about the value of social media as a learning tool.

It’s not rocket science to see that technology is and should be invading education.  There are TONS of sources online about this and one of the best current ones I found is listed above.
 
Mimi Ito gives some very good information on just how important social media is to education with also some great remarks about why parents shouldn’t be ‘friends’ on their kid’s FB page.

[[[[[ About Mimi:    Mimi Ito (in the video) is a Japanese cultural anthropologist who is a Professor in Residence at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine.  Her main professional interest is young people's use of media technology. She has explored the ways in which digital media are changing relationships, identities, and communities. ]]]]]
  
Another great current website for SM and education is:


       ….. with sweet little graphics and bite-sized data, and headliners like:

          6 must-see education TED Talks

          These 7 digital resources help integrate arts education. . .

          Textbooks, tech, and social media: What do students prefer?

          At least 66% of faculty unaware of open resources


Here is a NYTImes online article about the topic:
   

Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say

This loosely based study talks about how teachers have to do a ‘song and dance’ to gain their students’ attention due to social media.  They claim their attention spans are greatly decreased by the constant barrage of data and images their students consume on social media.
 
But, hey!  This sounds similar to an argument I posed to a good friend, CSU Media Arts alum, 2008, who’s film teacher told him his video clips HAD to be at least 3 seconds long.  We see how that’s changed.
 
Could it be students are actually absorbing more and faster than their older teachers?  Maybe they’re bored?  I was bored every year in school; weren’t you?


Here is another online article from February 2013 about the distractions for students of social media.

             How Students Benefit From Using Social Media


Joseph Baker, author, says that students are using social media all the time. . .    connecting education and technology.

However, social media offers plenty of opportunities for learning and interactivity, and if you take a moment to think about it, it’s not too hard to see how students benefit from using social media. As younger generations use such technology in the classroom, they remake the educational landscape.
Businesses worldwide are using social media more and more and thus, students NEED to be versed in these tools if they are to succeed in an ever technologically growing marketplace.
 
Not only will social media be used more and more in classrooms across the world, classes such as this one, Social Media CDES219, should be required for all disciplines.  In a nutshell, all I need to say is:


Khan Academy


Salman Khan was helping his young cousin with math in 2004.  When other friends and relatives wanted help he made little tutorials on YouTube.
 
His cousin said she liked him better on YouTube than in person.  The MAIN REASON was (and this was a showstopper for me, but again, not rocket science) she could pause and rewind when she needed to go back over something.  And he wouldn’t get upset!  How many times have you wanted to ‘re-wind’ a teacher?
  
So.   How has Khan Academy done since 2004?

From Wikipedia:    Khan Academy has eclipsed MIT's OpenCourseWare in  terms of videos viewed. Its YouTube channel has more than 458 million total views, compared to MIT's 67 million. It also has more than twice as many subscribers, with 2,089,001.

Khan Academy currently provides various levels of mathematics courses, and Salman Khan has stated that with the help of teachers, tutors and experts.
 
Khan Academy now has topics beyond just math, such as physics, chemistry, finance, computer science, logic, biology, art history and more.  


Case closed.


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