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NABELON, MA.

LOIEL SALOME
M.
BSEd-Math 3D
The Case For Social Media in Schools

BY SARAH
KESSLER
SEP 29, 2010
A year after
seventh grade teacher Elizabeth
Delmatoff
started a pilot social
media
program in her
Portland,
Oregon classroom,
20% of
students schoolwide were
completing
extra assignments for
no credit,
grades had gone up
more than
50%, and
chronic absenteeism was
reduced by more than a third. For the first time in its history, the school met
its adequate yearly progress goal for absenteeism.
At a time when many teachers are made wary by reports of predators and bullies
online, social media in the classroom is not the most popular proposition. Teachers
like Delmatoff, however, are embracing it rather than banning it. They argue that
the educational benefits of social media far outweigh the risks, and they worry that
schools are missing out on an opportunity to incorporate learning tools the students
already know how to use.

What started as a Facebook-like forum where Delmatoff posted assignments has


grown into a social media component for almost every subject. Here are the
reasons why she and other proponents of educational social media think more
schools should do the same.

1. Social Media is Not Going Away


In the early 1990s, the Internet was the topic of a similar debate in schools. Karl
Meinhardt was working as a school computer services manager at the time.
There was this thing called the Internet starting to show up that was getting a lot
of hype, and the school administration was adamantly against allowing access," he
says. "The big fear was pornography and predators, some of the same stuff thats
there today. And yetcan you imagine a school not connected to the Internet now?

Meinhardt helped develop the Portland social media pilot program after Delmatoff
saw his weekly technology segment on the local news and called to ask for his
advice. In his opinion, social media, like the Internet, will be a part of our world
for a long time. Its better to teach it than to fight it.
Almost three-fourths of 7th through 12th graders have at least one social media
profile, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey
group used social sites more than they played games or watched videos online.
When schools have tried to ban social media, now an integral part of a young
persons life, theyve had negative results. Schools in Britain that tried to lock
down their Internet access, for instance, found that as well as taking up time and
detracting from learning, it did not encourage the pupils to take responsibility for
their actions.
Dont fight a losing battle, says Delmatoff. Were going to get there anyway, so
its better to be on the cutting edge, and be moving with the kids, rather than
moving against themShould they be texting their friends during a lecture? Of
course not. They shouldnt be playing cards in a lecture, they shouldnt be taking a
nap during a lecture. But should they learn how to use media for good?
Absolutely.

2. When Kids Are Engaged, They Learn


Better

Matt Hardy, a 3rd and 4th grade teacher in Minnesota, describes the "giddy"
response he gets from students when he introduces blogs. He started using blogs in
his classroom in 2007 as a way to motivate students to write.
Students arent just writing on a piece of paper that gets handed to the teacher and
maybe a smiley face or some comments get put on it," he says. Blogging was a
way to get students into that mode where, 'Hey, Im writing this not just for an
assignment, not just for a teacher, but my friend will see it and maybe even other
people [will] stumble across it.' So theres power in that.
Delmatoff says that at first her students were worried they would get in trouble for
playing because they actually enjoyed doing activities like writing a blog.
But writing a blog, thats not playing, thats hard work, she says. Karl and I
started thinking we were really on to something if kids were thinking that their
hard academic work was too much fun.
Her students started getting into school early to use the computer for the social
media program, and the overall quality of their work increased. Although

Delmatoff is adamant that theres no way to pin her classs increased academic
success specifically to the pilot program, its hard to say that it didnt play a part in
the more than 50% grade increase.

3. Safe Social Media Tools Are Available


And Theyre Free

When Hardy started using blogs to teach, he developed his own platform to avoid
some of the dangers associated with social media use and children. His platform
allowed him to monitor and approve everything the children were posting online,
and it didnt expose his students to advertising that might be inappropriate. He later
developed a similar web-based tool that all teachers could use called kidblog.org.
The concept caught on so quickly that his server crashed in September when the
school year started.
Many mainstream social media sites like Facebook and MySpace are blocked in
schools that receive federal funding because of the Childrens Internet Protection

Act, which states that these schools cant expose their students to potential harm on
the Internet.
Kidblog.org is one of many free tools that allow teachers to control an online
environment while still benefiting from social media. Delmatoff managed her
social media class without a budget by using free tools like Edmodo and Edublogs.

4. Replace Online Procrastination with


Social Education

Between 2004 and 2009, the amount of time that kids between the ages of 2 and 11
spent onlineincreased by 63%, according to a Nielson study. And theres no reason,
Meinhardt argues, that schools shouldnt compete with other social media sites for
part of this time.
He helped Delmatoff create a forum where she would post an extra assignment
students could complete after school every day. One day she had students comment
on one of President Obamas speeches; another day she had them make two-minute

videos of something on their walk home that was a bad example of sustainability.
These assignments had no credit attached to them. It didnt get you an A, it didnt
get you a cookie. It didnt get you anything except something to do and something
to talk about with other students.
About 100 students participated. Through polls taken before and after the program,
Meinhardt determined that students spent between four to five fewer hours per
week on Facebook and MySpace when the extra assignments had been
implemented.
They were just as happy to do work rather than talk trash, Delmatoff says. All
they wanted was to be with their friends.

5. Social Media Encourages Collaboration


Instead of Cliques

Traditional education tactics often involve teacher-given lectures, students with


their eyes on their own papers, and not talking to your neighbor.
When you get in the business world, Meinhardt says, All of [a] sudden its like,
'OK, work with this group of people.' Its collaborative immediately. And we come
unprepared to collaborate on projects.

Social media as a teaching tool has a natural collaborative element. Students


critique and comment on each others assignments, work in teams to create
content, and can easily access each other and the teacher with questions or to start
a discussion.
Taking some discussions online would also seem to be an opportunity for kids who
are shy or who dont usually interact with each other to learn more about each
other. A study by the Lab for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of
Technology, however, found that this wasnt the case. The study found that using
educational social media tools in one of the Institutes courses had no measurable
impact on social connections.
Delmatoff argues that with her students, however, new connections were made. If
youre shy or youre not popular or any of those hideous things that we worry
about in middle school if you know the answers or have good insights or ask
good questions, youre going to be really valuable online. she says. So I started
to see some changes that way.

6. Cell Phones Aren't the Enemy


69% of American high schools have banned cell phones, according to figures
compiled by CommonSense Media, a nonprofit group that studies childrens use of
technology. Instead, Delmatoffs school collected students cell phone numbers.
Delmatoff would send text messages to wake chronically absent kids up before
school or send messages like, I see you at the mini-mart when they were running
late (theres a mini-mart visible from the school). She called the program Texts on
Time, and it improved chronic absenteeism by about 35% without costing the
school a dime.
The cell phone is a parent-sponsored, parent-funded communication channel, and
schools need to wrap their mind around it to reach and engage the kids, Meinhardt
says.

Conclusion
Nobody would dispute that the risks of children using social media are real and not
to be taken lightly. But there are also dangers offline. The teachers and parents who

embrace social media say the best way to keep kids safe, online or offline, is to
teach them.

Reference:
http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/

Critque/Comment
I chose this as an instrument to critique since this article also serves as my
output for the last activity that my instructor in Educational Technology 2
instructed us to pass online. I was just satisfy for the writers appreciation to social
media. The content was very good, she stated true information that are related to
the real world, especially to school. It actually aids us students, to learn better, such
as writing blogs, to critique and comment on each others assignments, work in
teams to create content, and can easily access each other and the teacher with
questions or to start a discussion, because it does not only motivate us to write, but
it also seem to be an opportunity for some students who are shy or who dont
usually interact with each other to learn more about one another. The article was
good, I am contented with the authors ideas about social media in school since it
also helps the teachers to design more interactive lessons and students will be even
more engaged in the learning process.

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