How many educators actually use things like twitter, wikis, or facebook to enhance their instruction? Have you ever had a teacher tweet another professional across the world during class to find an answer about something that you were learning in class?
I think an issue in our educational system is that some teacher's are not willing to incorporate more technology into their instruction. If students are being taught using the technology that they enjoy using outside of school, they may be more responsive to learning in general. Or do students not want teachers to interfere with technology that they think of as "fun," will those technologies not be fun anymore because they have to use them at school?
I would prefer if social networking was kept to a minimum in class room settings, or even left out completely. I think of sites like Facebook and Twitter to be more of a way to interact, and not a way to teach a lesson. Twitter and Facebook present more opinion than they do factual information.
ReplyDeleteI had to make a twitter account for one of my classes this semester. We used it to communicate with other students and the professor would publish updates about the class. Personally, I didn't like it very much. When i think of social networking, i think of a way to get away from classes and assignments. I believe social networking and academics should be kept separate.
ReplyDeleteI love it when my teachers use sites like twitter to help us learn. I don't know if many other departments use as much as the business school does, but it seems like in every class we have a different sort of social networking connection website. It's nice that I can always access the information even when I am away from my computer on my phones internet.
ReplyDeleteI think that technology can be an effective teaching tool depending on the subject, if the teacher knows how to use it, and if the students were receptive to that kind of teaching.
ReplyDeleteI once had a class where I had to blog twice a week on topics discussed during class and the prof would comment on our ideas and I thought it was an interesting way to learn about the subject.
I think using social networking sites to help teach could be useful for lower grade level teaching, because with kids that age they might think of these sites as "cool" ways to learn, and enjoy it more. However, in my personal experience with college professors, most of them can barely figure out how to turn on a projector, let alone figure out a website well enough to use it in class.
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