SOCIAL

MEDIA AND THE MODERN CLASSROOM 1

Social Media and the Modern Classroom

Lukas P. Stanley

Western Michigan University

November 8, 2016

Word Count: 1019

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Social media. Smartphones. Classrooms. With the rise in social media over the

last decade and a half, many teachers have approached these three items by dissociating

them. Social media and phones are distractions, many would say. Leave them at the

door. But these technologies, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and

whatever other content sharing sites the future brings, have become more than a

distraction to be brushed off they are now the bread and butter of the average teenager.

A survey done in a high school in 2013 revealed that only 16% of students had phones

considered non-smart, or which do not connect to the Internet. That number has likely

gotten even smaller since that survey was taken, and doesnt reflect possible social media

presence on other devices. Of all of the students surveyed, over 72% of them had

unlimited data plans (2013). Unlimited Internet, in their pockets, at all time. This is more

than a distraction, it is a cultural majority, and now teachers are faced with the issue of

innovating to meet students in the technological age. In fact, standards put forth by The

International Society for Technology Education (ISTE) even say that we should be using

technology to teach todays students (Page, 2015). A fundamental way in which this can

be done is with the mode of communication and data sharing that is already integrated

into high school students culture: social media.

One article breaks down the types of social media that a teacher might use into

useful categories: Social Networking Tools, Social Publishing Tools, Social Content

Managing Tools, and Virtual Worlds/Gaming Environments (Mao, 2014). The easiest

way for a teacher to delve into integrating social media into the classroom is with simple,

easy to set up Social Networking Tools, like Twitter (Page, 2015). While this isnt a

robust platform, it can be used to interact with the students during class as a way of
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having everyone participate through classroom hashtags (which self-identify similar

content within Twitter). The use of Twitter for educational purposes has also been shown

to have positive correlations to student GPA (Mao, 2014). A teacher could easily argue

that it would be much simpler, when posing a question to the class, to have them all

participate by writing an answer on the board at the front of the classroom. But what it

doesnt do is engage them in a meaningful way that is culturally relevant to them, which

is what social media integration seeks to do. If the teacher instead has everyone in the

class use their phone to tweet their answer to a question posed, their established social

constructs are utilized for academic purposes and also reinforced as valuable in an

environment that has, historically, belittled and even criminalized such practices.

Another strong argument in favor of integrating social media into the classroom is

that research shows it is heavily used for collaboration in collegiate and professional

environments. Beginning instruction in middle/high school to show students how social

media can be used effectively, to their academic and professional advantage (in addition

to its social function), will increase the college-readiness of high school students

(Marciano, 2015). The article by Joanne Marciano begins with an anecdote that really

highlights the educational value of more robust media sharing platforms, specifically

Facebook. As an eleventh grade girl is preparing for college applications, she excitedly

tells her teacher about how she was able to get constructive feedback from a respected

literary organization on some poetry she wrote, just through interacting with them on

Facebook. She is hoping these materials will help her in her application process, and she

excitedly shares this experience with her class (Marciano, 2015). This story highlights the

way that education isnt limited anymore to a classroom or a book. Students have the
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capability with just the phones in their pockets to interact with anyone in the world at any

given time, and this could be used to extraordinary advantage for educators. And students

want to be engaged in this way, but teachers and administrators need to catch up and start

facilitating this practice.

One such instance in which a school district has wholeheartedly engaged not just

social media, but technology as a whole, in the classroom, is described in the article by

Danielle Herro. She talks about two experimental eighth grade social studies classes that

were designed to be centered on technology and collaboration. The students were given

direction on various global topics to learn about, and were tasked with presenting that

information, but were not given step-by-step instructions. Rather, they were given time to

research and collaborate with one another. Many of the firewalls on sites such as

YouTube, which contain valuable educational tools but are typically blocked by school

servers, were lifted for the purpose of this nine-week project. By the end, students

projects were deemed very successful, and the program was expanded (Herro, 2015). Part

of what made it successful was the extensive tech support, which alleviated stress from

the teachers when faced with technological challenges. Another key lesson from this

experiment was that the teachers realized a shift in their role from the classroom being

teacher-directed to being teacher-facilitated (Herro, 2015). Facilitation freed the students

to utilize tools such as social media and computer software the teachers would have had

no skill-set to provide instruction in, but which created more diverse and personal

outcomes in the final projects. In fact, this perceived lack of technological knowledge on

the teachers part is a major source of frustration in learning for students (Mao 2014).

This can be changed only if teachers are willing to have a flexible mindset about what
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teaching is and what it can look like, and if they are willing to spend the time acquiring

new skillsets that will most effectively reach their students. With social media, students

can have a voice in any number of dialogues at any time, with anyone in the world. This

participatory culture is not only desired by the students, it should be encouraged because

it fosters global community and a larger learning environment that extends beyond the

school walls.
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References

2013. Social media in the classroom: student surveys from cedar hill high school.

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Herro, Danielle. (2015). Sustainable innovations: Bringing digital media and emerging

technologies to the classroom. Theory Into Practice, 54, 117-127. doi:

http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/10.1080/00405841.2015.1010834

Mao, Jin. (2014). Social media for learning: A mixed methods study on high school

students technology affordances and perspectives. Computers in Human

Behavior, 33, 213-223. doi: http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/10.1016/

j.chb.2014.01.002

Marciano, J. E. (2015). Becoming facebook friendly: Social media and the culturally

relevant classroom. English Journal, 104, 73-78. Retrieved from

http://libproxy.library.wmich.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.li

brary.wmich.edu/docview/1680253256?accountid=15099

Page, Katie. (2015). Using social media in a high school physics classroom. The Physics

Teacher, 54, 184. doi: http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/

10.1119/1.4908094