How Can Teachers Leverage Off Social Networking?

Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, wikis, blogs) is at the heart of Web 2.0 - a powerful medium for people to communicate and share knowledge. For my second ELPC G1 topic, I will look at the question, how can teachers leverage off social networking?

This question follows from an article by Klopfer et al (2009) (which I also used in my first ELPC G1 topic). The article looks at games, simulations and social networking and how teachers can leverage them. (And before the grammar police start getting excited, I know leverage is not a verb but it sounds technical!)

Klopfer (2009) argues that social networking is more than just entertainment; social networking is impacting the way we think, learn and interact, and even shaping the way we think, work and live. The article is a call to arms. The article observes that there is a disconnect between the way students are taught in school and how social networking is used outside school - "It is critical that education not only seek to mitigate this disconnect in order to make these two 'worlds' more seamless, but of course also to leverage the power of these emerging technologies for instructional gain" (Klopfer et al 2009).

The article notes that collaborative learning is contained within the Social Constructivism pedagogy. Social Constructivism (this week's topic in Educational Foundations) holds "that meaningful learning occurs when people are explicitly taught how to use the psychological tools of their culture (like language, mathematics, ..) and are then given the opportunity to use these tools in authentic, real-life activities" (Snowman 2009, p340). It could be argued that social networking, despite its recent appearance, has now become one of the psychological tools of western culture, especially teenage culture. The Social Constructivist would then say that students should be using social networking in authentic activities to enhance their learning.

An example of a teacher using a social networking tool, a Ning, in a class is described in the article. The use of the Ning allowed students to continue discussion outside of the classroom, gave the teacher a way to communicate a range of information to the students, and an easier way to see other students' work.

As usual I remain cautious and a little skeptical. Just because something is good for encouraging people to communicate, and communication is important in education, doesn't mean that something should be used in education (alcohol is one such example that springs to mind on a Friday afternoon). However, the use of the Ning as described in the article does appear to offer some realistic positive outcomes that a teacher can leverage off social networking.

Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., Graff, J. and Haas, J. (2009) The Instructional Power of Digital Games Social Networking Simulations and How Teachers Can Leverage Them. The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Snowman J. et al (2009) Psychology applied to teaching. John Wiley & Sons.