English and ICT

We are keen to encourage student teachers to investigate the possibilities of using Web 2.0 in the classroom. We introduce them to a number of local initiatives in which children have been using these new literacies in meaningful ways. This vignette provides a starting point:

1. What kinds of learning are intended? The example of Rob's Earth and Space topic provides us with an interesting way into this issue. Researching and presenting factual information about the planets was clearly the main purpose for his work; but he also has a clear understanding of the benefits of social media. However, one could imagine how the use of presentational tools could depend more explicitly on the aesthetic impact or media capabilities involved. Children could, for example, be asked to draw up evaluative criteria and assess the piece in terms of its effectiveness, or comparisons might be made between two or more social media. What, for instance, are the advantages and disadvantages of creating a Glogster multimedia poster as opposed to an Animoto presentation?


2. What sort of understandings does the social media site assume? Teachers of primary-age children need to be familiar with the social media available if they are to make good use of it in the classroom. This, in itself, is a substantial challenge, partly because of the rapidly changing nature of social media (see above), but also because it requires regular updating in a sector of the teaching profession that is quite understandably more often concerned with face-to-face work than anything else. CPD providers, technology specialists and local advisors have an important role to play here in evaluating, advocating, recommending and disseminating work that involves the use of social media. But this is no substitute for the first hand experience of teachers, who need the time to investigate the tools themselves in order to gauge the understandings and skills that are necessary for participation. This is a crucial step in integrating this work into classroom practice.


3. What will need to be taught or explained before children get involved? This follows on quite naturally from the previous questions, but here the focus is on implementation. Teachers need to think through how social media can be embedded in practice. This will include a consideration of the media skills involved, a view of the children's prior knowledge, as well as anticipating any problems that might arise, and identifying audience for the work produced. Audience is particularly significant, because this is obviously a key feature of social media. Although this key aspect can be introduced within the school context by sharing work between classes it really comes into its own when it is shared between schools or between home and school – and of course this introduces another layer of complication. Some of the most fruitful work to emerge so far has built on existing networks of schools - schools usually located in a relatively small geographical area. This is partly because effective cross-school collaboration depends on shared understandings which are often built through face-to-face meetings between teachers. Of course, this is by no means a pre-requisite of social media work and certainly there are good examples of international collaborations in which teachers have co-ordinated activities through their own use of social media.


4. How easy is it to access the site? Access to social media sites is usually very straightforward, simply requiring an authentic email address, a username and password. Although most social media sites offer their basic services free of charge, they often provide an enhanced service for a small fee. The enhanced service will often allow for more content to be uploaded. For instance in the case of Animoto, a pay account lets users make longer presentations. None of these are major obstacles, but in the busy life of a primary school classroom, they can be off-putting. First of all, school safety filters may block access to some sites (see Davies & Merchant, 2009), so this warrants initial exploration. Secondly not all schools provide children with individual email accounts. And thirdly, as we probably all know, it is frustratingly easy to forget usernames and passwords! If there are ways around these issues, then use can be reasonably straightforward. Teachers may then need to consider whether children will be encouraged to access the site from home, and any further issues that may arise as a result.


5. How easy is it to register/set up accounts? Although some of the basic issues have been addressed above, there are some further practical issues at the stage of registration – and these can be time consuming. Some sites – particularly those aimed at the educational market – have recognised this and provide ways around it. So, for example the wiki-farm PBworks (formerly PBwiki), allows teachers, as administrators, to enrol users without email addresses, whereas Voicethread provides a specific teacher log-in that enables multiple accounts to be activated. There is nothing more frustrating than planning to use social media, and generating pupil interest along the way only to find that logging in is problematic and the verification process painfully slow. So it is certainly worth spending time in testing out the logistics of registration before introducing it to the children.


6. How can safety issues be addressed? Although some measures taken by educators in the name of e-safety may inhibit educational uses of the internet by inadvertently blocking access to good sites (Davies & Merchant, 2009), teachers will want to be re-assured that the use of social media will not expose children to risk. The difficulty here is that the default assumption in social media is that published material is open to all. Uploaded material is public in the widest sense. However, some sites allow viewing by invitation only (you can mark your material as private) and others allow you to moderate comments. Social media companies with an interest in the schools market have given some of these issues careful consideration. So, for example, Animoto's education interface explains how teachers of younger children can monitor activity by using dummy email addresses (there is a clear explanation of how to set these up), and how presentations remain private.