Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Social Interaction on the Web

Social media can be the "civic forum" to teach students to "read, write, and participate 
in thoughtful, engaging ways" (Turner & Hicks, 2017, p. 116). According to Hicks (2017), 
students are able to create their own identities on a living archive of work while at the 
same time learning cyber citizenship.

One social media platform in particular, Pinterest, is a useful tool both for random linking 
and for targeted searching. The education community on Pinterest is significant. Boards 
are filled with lesson plans, activities, and general ideas for enhancing the classroom. 
These boards are a great place to learn how to use the search features on Pinterest: Users 
can link through interesting pins to find related boards, and they can add and subtract 
search terms to refine a search and better target relevant content. Also, this much-pinned 
infographic sums up some ways that teachers use Pinterest – to curate content, organize 
ideas, collaborate with others, and for student projects.

Picture



As Hicks (2013) states that possible purposes for social media can be to "follow 
the collections of others and offer constructive feedback" (p. 149). Teachers can 
set up a Pinterest page for one particular class or a series of classes with Pins that 
focus on themes or subtopics important to the lesson at hand. Below is an exampl3
Pinterest Pin for school technology. Pinterest is a visual tool that inspires creativity 
and ideas that text cannot, an educational hub of boards and pins, less personal 
than other platforms with a streamlined profile, and there are no limits to how many 
followers you can have. It also encourages quick collaboration between teachers on 
all sorts of subjects and interests.


Here is a YouTube video introducing Pinterest as an educational tool below.




References

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: composing texts across media and genres
    Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Peterson, L. (2018). Using pinterest in the classroom. Retrieved 
     from https://edtech.worlded.org/using-pinterest-classroom/ 
Pinterest Logo. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pinterest_Shiny_Icon.svg   
Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: teaching adolescents to 
     read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.


5 comments:

  1. I love the examples you included on how to include Pinterest in education. Turner and Hicks (2017) state that “if we fail to bring social media-and the ways in which it invites and allows for robust, intellectual arguments that move beyond petty chatter-into a conversation with our students, we are doing them a disservice” (p.112). As educators, it is vital for us to include social media in our curriculum in order to prepare students for their future.

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  2. Brooke,

    First of all, who doesn't love Pinterest? Second of all, I have personally experienced how helpful this social media platform is in my educational career, so I can only imagine how helpful it could be for our students if they were taught the benefits and uses of the site. The collaborative nature of this platform makes working in groups much easier, and the students will always have their account to add to, take away from, investigate on, and participate in, which can then "continue to grow into a portfolio" (Hicks, 2013, p. 153) that the students can benefit from year after year.

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  3. I am also an avid Pinterest user! I love using it in my personal life, and I think it could also be a great tool to use in the classroom as well.This platform could serve as an avenue "to build students' mindfulness in social media spaces, in order to help them see their participation in those networks as real reading and writing" (Turner and Hicks, 2017, p. 113).

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  5. I have recently become addicted to Pinterest! I use it for recipes and to help my obsession with baby girl clothes. I love the idea of using Pinterest in the classroom. The majority of my female students LOVE making crafts and projects; this would be a great website to use to have students show their personalities in a fun and engaging outlet. "Social media is the telephone for this generation of teens (and, increasingly, adults)" (Hicks, 2013, p. 140).

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