Techniques of how social media can be used in the classroom

“Social media is here. It's just another resource and doesn't have to be a distraction from learning objectives. Social media is another tool that you can use to make your classroom more engaging, relevant and culturally diverse”.

These are the words of Vicki Davis, a digital pedagogue enthusiast. As I read her article “A Guidebook for Social Media in the Classroom”, along with the article “Social Media Can Be Your Ally “written by Nicholas Provenzano, I realised that there are thousands of ways in which social media can be used in the classroom to enhance the learning experience of students. And as a future South African teacher, specialising in accounting and business studies, I thought some of these social media techniques could come in handy in my class next year.

The following few techniques have come to my mind as I was thinking about which techniques I can use to improve accounting and business studies by using social media. I came to the conclusion that these are two difficult subjects and that I should use different methods of social media, in such a way as to improve the learners ability to learn. So I have come up with the following ideas:

•          Learners can tweet on the work that they have done in class and their peers can comment on their tweets or ask questions and start a conversation on how they understand the work. Learners can also ask each other about their views on the work.
•          Learners that are shy can use twitter during class time to ask questions and to get answers from peers or from the teacher.   
•          Learners can engage with each other and with the teacher after school by using facebook or twitter to ask questions if they are unsure of something and especially the day (or night) before a test or handing in a project.
•          A teacher posting a comment on social media benefits all as every learner can get access to the same information and parents can also view the post and carry the message over to their children. This saves the teacher a lot of time as responding to each and every email takes up time and effort and it’s usually the same questions that get asked over and over again.
•          When learners post tweets and comment about what they have learned in class, parents can view it and see if their child is keeping up with the workload. This is also a good means of comparing their child to the rest of the class to see whether the child’s progress is on standard. If they notice that the child is struggling, they can arrange for extra help at a very young age.
•          Learners can be given a task of writing a blog every second week on their thoughts of how they feel about the subject, what they have learned and with what they are struggling. The teacher- that would be me- and their peers would be able to comment on their blogs and maybe give advice or ask similar questions. This is also a great place where parents would be able to track the progress of their child.
•          A group can be formed on facebook where the whole grade can join in as to check up on how the other classes of, for example accounting, are progressing and whether they are doing the same things in class and whether their teacher might have mentioned a better way of understanding or had given a better example for something. 
•          Teachers can also share information with each other on social media about their subject content or even just on ways of disciplining ones class that have proved to be working.
•          Learners can be asked to make a YouTube video on different sections of the work and their peers will be responsible for commenting on their video, to give ideas for improvement and to criticise their video by using valid statements.
•          Homework tasks will be put on platforms such as twitter and facebook so that learners can quickly go back to check if all their homework is done for the day.
•          A social problem can also be addressed by using something such as an accounting project to let learners create an idea on blogger for a fundraiser and to set up a budget for the event. The most popular idea (voted by people from outside and their peers) will win a prize and the idea will be practically implemented to raise money for a social issue.
•          Instagram can also be used to gather pictures (maybe one picture per week) to compile a project on their idea of the micro-, market- and macro environment in business studies.

These are all wonderful ideas that will excite the children and enhance their learning experience, but it is rather important to note that parents are very protective over their children and some parents wouldn’t want their children to be posting and tweeting on social media. For this reason one has to make sure it is soci

ally acceptable to connect online with the learners and the parents must also be aware that their child and his/her teacher are connected on social media. An easier and perhaps more acceptable forms of social media for children are ones such as Edublogs, Kidblog and edmodo or Faketweet. These sites will expose children to the online society but without putting the child in danger. As you progress in teaching your learners about social media, you will also be able to teach then about the dangers and the effects of using social media in the wrong way. This will prevent children from making mistake later in their life- which could cause them to lose their job.