“Take Your Phone Out:” Enhancing Education through Social Media Use
Welcome to my digital exploration of Social Media, Identity, and Education! In this project, you will find a digital archive of research centered on the theoretical approaches to social media and identity, their connections to education, and finally, some educational applications of these theories to the secondary English Language Arts classroom.
This exploration serves to emphasize and advocate for a shift from traditional classroom approaches to digital, media-saturated approaches that are proven to produce more engagement, motivation, and more favorable results from students and their work. By switching our mentality from viewing phones as a distraction in the classroom to phones and social media serving as an enhancement to learning, modern classrooms can begin to meet the needs of modern students.
While this archive can be read in order as the links appear below, each link or “exhibit” showcases a different aspect of this exploration. They can be read in any order and establish a variety of narrative flows that all work together to build upon and expand on each other.
I hope you enjoy this dive into social media, identity, and education research. Now, “take your phone out” and continue on this exploration to learning.
Introduction: From Fantasy to Reality
Dive into this narrative anecdote about my jarring experience going from learning how to be an ideal teacher in a fantastical classroom to the real-world classroom laden with rules, expectations, and obstacles to achieving the romance novel ideal of teaching.
Take a close look at how the world has changed with the birth of the digital age and the startling fact of how slow public schools are to catch up to the digital natives they’re now teaching.
As users of social media, our participation in social platforms or “networked publics” allows us to engage in self-reflective processes as we “write ourselves into being.”
Social Media, Literacy, & the Classroom:
How state standards can be met by digital and social media applications to the classroom, and in turn meet the needs of our students.
How can YOU begin to adopt digital and social media practices into your classroom? What platforms allow for your students to meet standards, showcase their knowledge and understanding, and reflect upon their learning and themselves?