#SocialMediaIt

Good afternoon *cough*evening*cough*, my fellow digital pedagogues in training, all ye digital P's and digital Po's and also, of course, everyone else!! 

So this week we had to read Davis (2014) and Provenzano (2015) and translate all their words "into [magical] ideas for [our] own curriculum specialisations". The PGCE pace is picking up at exponential speeds, and technology, oh technology....I know how many of my fellow student colleagues may be feeling right now, it goes a little something like this: 

From here.

But lets just take a deep breath (or twenty), we can do this! I totally feel what Davis says about ignoring social media equates to us not living in the reality of today - basically stop pretending that you're in the 21st century. BUT it IS the 21st Century, Welcome One and Welcome All! It's 2016 and we are young and alive, we need to keep up with the digital times cause if we fall behind now, imagine us in 10 or 20 years.... It'll be THIS all over again:

From here.

Actually, I think some of us feel like this now already! But let’s think… How shall we use this sorcery to our learner's advantage? My main focus curriculum study choice subject is Art, and I immediately think Instagram, blog, twitter posted notes....

Instagram:

I #LOVE Instagram, I even have my own account, check it out at sanmarivanwykfineartist. I think it’s a great visual tool for art students. I love the idea of the scavenger hunt, I imagine if we did a certain theme like identifying the subject matter and style of a painting, I would do a daily or weekly challenge like #figurative, also using a hashtag to link our class together, and then they can be on the look-out at home, around school, around their community and they must post at least one example with the hashtags. This will also help them develop the identifying skills they need and I can see if they get something wrong where they are struggling with and I can address those aspects then in class or extra classes. This is a high order though, concerning the requirement of a smart phone and I realise it won’t always work out exactly like this in all schools. But in situations where there are no smart phones, I can supply children with a little booky, glue, scissors, pens and piles and piles of art magazines and give the same challenge in class. Hashtags included. We can call it our #PaperInstagram.

From here.

Tweets as posted notes: 

This could be valuable in learning all those technical art terms. We can have different kinds of pictures of artworks pasted all around the class and learners can write short tweet like descriptive terms and sentences and go stick it up around their chosen work. We can then walk around and discuss these terms and add new ones as we go along. This is an exercise that can be repeated throughout the year within many different themes to help learners get use to the new language they are learning in the subject.

Blogging:

I would love to use the tool we are using weekly in our Digital Pedagogy class, doing exactly THIS (I am writing a blog after reading articles, engaging with them and thinking further and then engaging with other students about their thoughts etc.). In an art context for learners who are new to the art world, this would be a great way to get them to engage with the work. Especially if it is not counted for how perfect their responses but if you can see that the wheels are turning in their heads and they are thinking about the work and trying to figure it out and connect dots. It is a great and valuable tool. But WAIT! NO need to throw out the paper with the bathwater in our new technological world!

From here.

Yet again, even if it is in a classroom with kids with no internet at home or computers, I can hand out short readings (related to a current study theme in class) or material about artworks, or art criticism, or even art magazines and tell them to pick an article and engage with it on a piece of paper. They then hand in all there papers and either I can shuffle them and hand them out and then on another piece of paper they can engage with the work they are reading from someone else. It can be a lesson in how to respectfully engage with someone else’s work, in how to conduct yourself in public, in how to be honest without being mean, most of all, how to critically think about a subject, and about someone else’s opinion on a subject, and on their own thoughts on a subject. 

In conclusion...

Which social media strategies and/or devices would I like to use one day and implement in my lessons in order to encourage and help learners to engage and also to make learning easier and make the work part of their life worlds?

From here.

I’ll stop here for now though, cause you know, 400 words has come and gone long ago. But so many more options, and thoughts to go think about this. You know, in-between our Intro to Educational Research group assignment, preparing a lesson plan (ek glaskas volgende week –WooHoo!), our Governance assignment….and picking my Mom up from the airport tonight! YAY!!!!!