Article Review #4

Fee, J. (2013, August 13)  7 Ways Teachers Use Social Media in the Classroom.  Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2013/08/18/social-media-teachers/


SUMMARY
Fee says that teachers are learning to use social media in the classroom because it is the focal point for millennials.  She goes on to outline seven different ways for teachers to use media in the classroom.

1.    Encourage students to share work socially.  Students were asked to place and evaluate work online.  Students posted on a number of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  Students were then required to critique the work of their classmates. 

2.    Use a hashtag to facilitate guest speaker discussions.  Students were encouraged to live-tweet an in class interview.  Students were then required to write a summary of the tweets after the interview.  Students can also tweet questions to the speaker as well.  This allows the students to ask questions without interrupting the speaker.

3.    Require the students to keep a blog.   Students can be asked to keep a blog about relevant or recent topics in a specific area.  A blog can also be used to reduce the amount of assignments that a student has to do.

4.    Require original expert sources.  In this method, students are encouraged to reach out to professionals and sources through a sight like Linkedin.  The author does note that a site like this is primarily used for professional networking.

5.    Use Google Hangouts.  This site allows a teacher/professor to hold virtual office hours when it is not possible to meet face to face with the student

6.    Create a social classroom on Edmodo.  Edmodo is a site in which teachers and post assignments, create a calendar, upload messages or photos for students and create quizzes.  This site allows students to take quizzes online and receive quick feedback  It also allows teacher to interact with each other and share lesson ideas.

7.    Hold a class in Second Life.  Second life is a website that in which a virtual classroom can be held.  Students can have discussions or debate a topic that is being covered in the class, instead of physically meeting.

REFLECTION
I thought that the recommendations were very helpful, although I think that some would be better used at the high school level than others.  I think that the creation of blogs would be one of the most useful tools to use for my classroom.  I could have students create blogs to discuss a variety of topics that are being studied, or to discuss significant historical figures.  Blogs can also be used as a tool for students to review primary and secondary sources from the time period. 
    Edmodo is another tool that is useful for the high school classroom.   I have used this and have found it is extremely effective in the classroom.  I have had students post comments, pictures and videos about topics that we have discussed in class.  I have posted assignments and quizzes for the students to complete as well.
    I feel that other topics that were shared could be effective as well.  I could have students post work or discussion topics in the future which can lead to discussions amongst the students in class. 
    I feel that with the current class structure that is used in my school, the one suggestion that I won’t be able to use would be second life.  Since we don’t have the opportunity for an open campus, an online meeting instead of a class meeting would be impossible to have.  The only time I could see this being of use at the moment would be on a snow day.