ETEC 642: Week 6
This week has been a mass of deadlines and familial responsibilities that have been keeping me busy. If you havent seen the movie Star Wars this meme above may not make a lot of sense. If you are curious, this is a small taste/parody from the actual film.
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As you can see from the video above, I literally feel like I am trapped in this “ALLMOOOOSSTTTT There!” transition as I ease into projects for this class as well as start finalizing my final project for the LTEC Masters Project. It is both a fun, engaging, and stressful time!
Back to ETEC 642, this week was an interesting one as I was able to read up on and research different social media tools for my Social Media Spotlight. The tool I chose was Flickr. I really have enjoyed using it recently to catalogue so much of my life goings on here in Nara, Japan. My family especially has been using it to check up on my activities and to keep in touch. If you want to see my account, please view it here.
In terms of class I have two things that were on my mind. One, is that we are going to be starting our collaboration projects with the students from Kansai (yay!). Two, in our readings I learned a lot about how social media is being used in education. Some of the results were shocking, some not so much.
I think that I am excited to be working with students from Kansai University. Living in Japan and working with Japanese students and clients has really broadened my horizon on teaching and learning. I am really looking forward to working with everyone on this. Who knows, I may make more friends to go out and have a few drinks with in Osaka!
(all for the sake of collaboration… of course)
For the social media in education… I think I can understand the low numbers that I am seeing in terms of teachers using social media in the classroom. I think that newer technologies and constrictions placed by many schools on social medias makes educators a little leery of using these tools in the classroom. I know that in my expereince I am teaching at an International School, when I mentioned using Pinterest for one of my classes I got immediate negative reactions from both principal and curriculum coordinator. It wasnt something they understood, or new anything about therefore they didnt want me to use it. I thought that this was a sad reason for a school that seems to be so open minded about teachers and their teaching styles. I think that this a good example that goes to show that even in todays age where these schools are pushing for the use of Google Docs and different online tools and technology, this hesitancy towards social media is real.
I am of course still going to do the project that I had imagined using Pinterest and see what happens.
I liked this weeks assignments as it has me thinking on a social media in both my professional and personal life!
When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it. - Yo-Yo Ma
Lepi, K. (2013, October 29) How social media is being used in education. Retrieved fromhttp://www.edudemic.com/social-media-in-education/
