Workflow- Social Media School Teacher

Putting out an idea like mine does wonders for getting smart people like you to voice your concerns and give me some sensible ideas for what’s next.

You’ve said that most teachers can’t operate computers beyond Microsoft Word. You’ve said that most schools can’t afford this technology. You reminded me that 3rd graders probably won’t have smart phones just yet (I worked in wireless telephony before getting into social media, and they high growth rate of kids and phones in the US was 10, so I’m a bit later).

I think the basics can be taught alongside the neato. But should kids read through picture books and watch old VHS tapes about nature, or should they go out and curate their own material, by snapping pictures, and then using the web with their teachers to find more info.

Further, learning how to think, how to analyze, how to parse, how to discern, and several other structures are becoming more and more important to our children. Some level of rote memorization will still matter, but I’m wondering when the shift to search instead of storing information in our heads will be the norm.

It’s not that I’m trying to be an unrealistic futurist. It’s not that I think the physical world is bad. I love crayons. I love construction paper projects.

But if we don’t think about it, and if we don’t dream of how it will come about, it won’t. And my child, I promise you, will be very well versed in how these new technologies build communication, community, and collaboration.

Thanks for your ideas. Keep them coming. Debate them. Blog your own variations on the them. That’s the point. : )

Chris, more great points, which brings up cognitive requirements for learning in an environment and world where there is so much competing for attention. Social media causes disruptive continuously. I’ll be trying to read a blog, get pinged for a chat, and get an alert from Twitterfox. How to we get back on track to focus our attention (where was it, anyway)? You might consider an article on teaching or knowing how to manage data and sensory overload from multiple channels and sources. Our children have a new world that we as parents and teachers have to prepare them for. Blocking Facebook or not teaching them how to use RSS feeds is the least of it.

wow! that is awesome. It is nice to see a teacher in touch with the modern world. I bet it keeps the kids interested. But 3rd graders with camera phones! not happening here.

I could agree with Beth more. I’m a former teacher and now I train teachers on edutech in the classroom. The biggest problem is not the kids; it’s the teachers. Getting them to try something new is like pulling off your toenail (don’t try it by the way, it’s all icky and stuff).

Kid’s aren’t too young to learn this stuff, although I’m not sure I would have an 8 year old on Friendfeed or other services like that. Social media is fine, but I would contain the social component internally.

Thanks for the article; it was inspirational and I have some ideas now.

As others have posted, it’s a neat idea, but it seems to focus on teaching these third-graders how to use social media, not how to write or do math. Social media is a fantastic discussion medium–and would be great for, say, English readings and analysis–but I don’t see the value-added when teachers already struggle to teach basic math and science.

Plus, I volunteer with third through sixth graders. None of them have cellphones, even non-smartpones. Their parents specifically will not allow them to have cellphones until at least middle school.

I worry about these kids’ privacy, too, especially if they’re using all these online services. They’re going to fill out a lot of profiles. And, at least in the U.S., these sites should be following COPPA rules, which greatly increases the amount of time to register an account for a child (the parent must physically mail or fax a permission letter to the service; how many will do so?).

I also worry about a child predator realizing that all of Kaitlin’s schedules, videos, writings, etc. are online.

All that said, it’d be great to see more social media acceptance among teachers. Set up a forum for discussing Silas Marner. Post videos of important lectures so kids can see them at home if they’re sick or need to review.

A lot of great comments about an interesting concept. I’ve worked in some highly technical schools where the third-grade kids were doing work similar to this in their tech class. The other classes were all wired up, but few of the teachers knew how to work the technology or it was redundant to their subject. There is a space for technology in schools, but schools don’t have to or need to become fully tech as in this post. Although our world is more wired, there are also more people in it and people skills are still as important as tech skills.

Chris, thanks for another great article to get us thinking.

Brent, you bring up some valid points. I worry that too much focus on technology in school will hurt the teaching of basics, but I also know that a good teacher can integrate learning and tech to provide some great experiences.

The other issue to consider is the tech divide. How many schools or individual kids have the tools to be able to use all of the social media?

I’ve got a few, mostly disjointed, thoughts — coming from the parent of a 1st grader and a 4th grader.

- This needs to involve the parents, which is as big (if not bigger) a stumbling block than teachers. This summer I was trying to figure out how to encourage my 9 y.o. to read more. I set up a private Goodreads group for kids to post about what they were reading, in the hopes of encouraging others to find books they liked. We also set up places for parents to write about their books, to show kids that reading is not just for kids. I and a few other mothers reached out invited 9 entire classrooms (via email) in K-4th grade.

We had a total of 5 families sign up. Lack of activity (kids just don’t read that fast)sunk the project.

The interesting point, though, was that I didn’t have to “teach” my kids how to use Goodreads. I showed them once how to post a review, and they took it from there. They’ve been playing on Webkinz for 2 years now — it’s intuitive. Because of that, if we can figure out how to use the social media angle to directly relate to the fundamentals like multiplication and division, it can make it more fun and enjoyable.

My kids have learned their times tables from listening to old episodes of Schoolhouse Rock on their ipods. How about a Youtube project of a class performing the songs? The rehearsal and planning alone would drill those multiplication tables in their heads before they even realized they were learning.

This is a wonderful, thought-provoking piece, Chris. I used to teach high school, but I left because the it became too draining to continually struggle with colleagues and an administration who thought long-term planning meant “next period”, and that if a kid could mark a good pattern of bubbles on a scantron sheet their job was successful. Of course, now I work as a developer of corporate training where I’ve discovered that inertia is univeral.

So, some of the reactions here sound a lot like those of my former colleagues and bosses and current clients and bosses. I’m not sure what those commenters mean when they say that Chris is somehow misguided in his story because social media is “just a tool” and that the kids need to “learn how to learn” or learn long division or other aspects of the three Rs… What do you think they are doing in Chris’s scenario?

* They’re writing blog posts, reading other students’ posts, peer-reviewing posts, and analyzing the posts they’re reading closely enough to add suggestions and corrections.
* They’re using the Internet as a library to research topics, then they evaluate the results returned as videos, and post them for the class to see and use.
* The audio reports they’ve turned in for review are book reports, and I’m guessing that they are writing the reports before reading them and are likely graded on their thesis and its presentation.
* They’ve collected “information” in a prior unspecified assignment — by searching, reading, interviewing, whatever — and are collaboratively analyzing different methods of presenting their info to achieve a desired effect.
* They’re outside collecting images and I’m guessing they’re going to be asked to use those images to create a narrative, perhaps individually or in groups.

About the only thing I don’t see here is a bunch of students struggling with long division, when they know that they can type the equation in Google’s search bar or the calculator on their phone for the answer. And if you think that these kids are missing out on some thinking or math skills because they’re not mechanically scratching out answers with pencil and paper, then you’ve never seen them learn to calculate a trajectory arc in a Sponge Bob game, evaluate the quickest route through an obstacle course to gather the maximum number of energy points possible, or learn by failing and losing and trying a different avenue to a solution.

It doesn’t look like learning because the kids aren’t sitting in nice neat rows, producing identical copies of information which bore them and bore the teacher who’s done this same thing over and over with different kids, and it teaches the kids that learning is drudgery, experimentation is discouraged, and education is something that you only do in school.

This is a potential, blue-sky, best-of-all-possible-worlds scenario (well, except for the budget problems) and it is something we need to aim for. Our schools are failing because kids are not going to accept the importance of educational ideas which are rooted in the societal needs of the 19th & 20th centuries. As someone above pointed out, they are the “digital natives”, and they are not going to take seriously explanations of how their world works from a bunch of newbies, kthxbai.

None of the tools discussed have a complexity that makes training teachers difficult, but the enculturating of the medium is a different issue. I wish more educators would be comfortable with the students teaching each other, and the teachers for that matter, user methodology. While proficiency with the tools is important, because of the ever changing nature of the medium, students should be encouraged to tackle new user tools, to simply plunge into the different interfaces, to embrace the additude that I can figurw this out. (If the next generation of tools do not continue to grow in the area of user “ease”, I do not think they will survive in the market).

Concerns about safety should be addressed. Do any of the software companies consider allowing schools to use their tools in secure micro-environments so cultural proficiency need not be undermined by predators?

Bravo Chris! The technological advances we welcome in the classroom are merely vehicles to authentic learning. We as teachers must engage students where they are at. Students live in an age of technology. Our goal as educators and adults alike is to teach them the critical thinking skills they need to navigate the web. Students gain more ownership in their learning in the mediums discussed in your post. I’m on board with this type of classroom. Where do I sign up?

Laura

All I can think of is playing Oregon Trail on a slow, old Mac when I was in 3rd grade! :)

It does amaze me how much kids at a younger age know about computers and the internet. I don’t think that this concept is that far off from a reality in some schools, or at least the near future reality. Everything that you described is easily accessible now but most of it isn’t be used for these purposes. I also think we’re more likely to see this type of thing in a college environment right now.

-Justin Levy

Chris –

The post & comments here are so inspiring, so BIG-picture that I think this is something that transcends chrisbrogan.com in such a positive way.

Sure there are hurdles to anything this forward-thinking, but I for one have spent a good portion of my day just imagining the possibilities of a classroom that embraces new media in this manner… and I’m not even a teacher!

Chris –

The post & comments here are so inspiring, so BIG-picture that I think this is something that transcends chrisbrogan.com in such a positive way.

Sure there are hurdles to anything this forward-thinking, but I for one have spent a good portion of my day just imagining the possibilities of a classroom that embraces new media in this manner… and I’m not even a teacher!

Evano brought up the idea of students submitting oral presentations via YouTube or some other A/V medium in addition to a written document.

I like this concept… but not so much for the elementary students. More for the high schoolers who will be using BlackBoard and other online technologies in college, whether bricks-and-mortar or 100% online like Capella University.

Or, what about a family of four who go on vacation and the two kids, each of whom are in school, co-create a video or a series of blog posts, filmed/written on-location, and can both receive credit for an online interactive “show and tell” experience?

Going one step further, I remember being in middle or high school when the space shuttle went up and 2-way conversations were aired on live TV in class. How about taking that best practice example and use it for the kids on vacation, speaking to their peers from wherever and interviewing locals in real-time. Call it citizen journalism for 5th graders.

Hmm?

Hi,

really loved this article! As a teacher, and as a web technology lover, I wish my school would introduce a course like that. I’d be happy to sign in and teach these kind of courses.

Cheers,
Max

Oh it will all happen, just not this year. Those 3rd graders will grow up with all of this being “just the way you do it” and soon enough some of them will be teachers themselves.

While many of us here can see all of the flora and fauna, nature trails, waterfalls, and other pretty sites of the social media forest, to outsiders it is just a big clump of trees. It will still take a few years before the mainstream people will become curious enough to venture inside.

Oh, and on the downside?

Unfortunately, none of the elements in your story will ever be on the 6 o’clock news. Why? Well, intelligence is not news worthy – but a dog on a skateboard? Oh yea, that will sell some ad spots. Sad truths.

Hmmm, everyone is so happy on this one.

I think it is very valuable to learn audacity and some of the tools you mention, but there are more important things not being taught that are more fundamental.

1. Speaking – Why record an audio. Being a good speaker is more important and takes much more skill.

2. Personal Finance – Before you learn YouTube, maybe you should have weekly Quickbooks mock transactions to enter and write about. (Dull, I know. But important)

3. Efficiency – Maybe we should give each kid a budget and they can hire a virtual assistant or buy new software or have a custom app designed to simplify their lives. Now that is a great skill to have.

I think it would take a teacher a lot longer to grade audio files than writing. If they are going to go to the effort, why not just have them do oral presentations. The kid could include media in the presentation, such as playing an audio interview they conducted asking other people what they thought of the book. (If you really want to include audio)

Do not get me wrong. I am not a nay-sayer. My first company was built to advance technology in education. I just do not think that social media will become the main platform. Maybe Kindle, with lots of interactive features where people can collaborate and share will.

Chris,

This was a fascinating and provocative post, with amazing comments furthering the discussion. Wow!

I’m going to agree with Adam. My daughter just entered 4th grade this week, and I want her to get her schooling in the disconnected world. Being hyper-connected swallows kids up soon enough.

As a learning experience, I don’t see it. Kids of this age don’t yet have the breadth of experience or the maturity to “curate their own material.” Without reading the books and seeing the work of others, how are they to do this curating?

With all the equipment, I was reading this as a high school or college class. By high school kids can do some great stuff. They’ll have picked up the skills outside of school, which is fine.

Remember when we weren’t allowed to use calculators in grade school because we wouldn’t learn the math with a tool in the way? Learning how to use the tools doesn’t teach you the principles behind them, nor how to maximize your use of them.

Budgetary and teacher-training issues aside, I would love to see this come to pass—but for kids who’ve had a few more years of real-world learning under their belt first.

Regards,

Kelly

Proof:

The problem with Web 2.0 and all that Audio.

“Dharmesh lets their discuss the benefits of a blog versus just adding a group to Ning.”

their vs them

Pat OMahony, pomahony2@hotmail.com

Many commenters disagreeing with the classroom scenario Chris offers state that a future like this will not work because the students are not learning fundamentals like reading and writing. Yet most of these same commenters didn’t read carefully enough or critically enough to see that the children are turning in BOOK REPORTS in audio format, and are WRITING BLOG ENTRIES, among other assignments and activities not fully fleshed out in this essay. Missing critical details like that in their reading doesn’t argue very strongly for the superiority of current and past educational paradigms.

And, the less said about nitpickers who see typos as “proof” for dismissing the entire point of the article, the better.

But let me give you a hint, Mr. Pedant: the author of this article is not a product of an educational paradigm such as the one he describes. Therefore, if your typo is proof of the “problem” with an educational system, it is proof of the one currently in place, and the one that produced everyone reading and commenting on this thread.

I used to tutor twin boys from the grades of 5th-9th. When they entered the 8th grade, I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast. The boys mother was very disappointed and was not looking forward to finding another tutor. So, we started tutoring via webcam. We also used a wiki platform for essay papers, and we used Zoho for document editing and collaboration.

Technology offers so many avenues with regards to education, it’s overwhelming.

As a teacher, I don’t discount any idea that could provide a way to get students interested and excited about their classwork.

If a teacher stops learning, so will their students.

Another fantastic post Chris – wouldn’t it be great to see all schools adopting this model in the next few years?