Can social media sources be used in the classroom?
It is April Fools Day, and a teacher has given the students in her high school science classroom an article from Discover Magazine to read called Strange Molelike Animal Melts Ice Tunnels With Its Head. It was meant to be a funny article on the nature of science, but some of the students took the article as fact (Folger 2008). In this example, students were unable to recognize the article as a fake. In today’s world filled with social media and information at our fingertips, it is important to be able to tell the good sources from the bad. Social media can be an exceptional learning tool for students if they are taught to analyze their sources to further research topics.
When I say the word social media, I am talking about the mainstream sources where millennials in schools are receiving most of their day-to-day information. Some major examples are Facebook, Twitter, Vine, YouTube, and Instagram. These are all sources that students are using everyday, and information is passed to them within seconds. For example, I can get on Facebook and scan an article relating vaccinations to autism. Without stopping to check that source’s facts or credentials, I might just take in that information as fact. Now, regardless of your beliefs on the vaccine issue, this example shows the importance of fact checking the quality of your sources. The previously stated Discover article example, also shows that even “quality sources” need to be analyzed. Not everything that Discovery Magazine says can be taken as fact. Also, other sources or research might need to be found in addition to confirm a theory or fact.
I am not trying to suggest that social media is a bad source. In fact, I think that it should be used more in classrooms to help students connect with the material. My argument is that students need to be taught how to effectively critique the substance of a resource. According to a published video by PowToon, there are 3 questions students can ask to determine if the source is reliable in their research for information.
- Is there an author and are they credible?
- Who is the publisher and are they credible?
- Is the url ending in .gov, .edu, or .org?
All of these questions can get students thinking about the quality of the sources they are viewing on the social media sites that they visit, and whether they need to further explore information to backup their theories.
David Perry at the University of Texas in Dallas takes this concept of social media a step further. He believes that through the correct methods, social media outlets should be used regularly in the classroom. Students are constantly connecting with these media outlets and it would benefit learning to have students engage in them during the school lessons. To do so, Perry gives the following guidelines that should be followed:
- Understanding Information Access Through the Web
- Understanding Hyper-connectivity in the Classroom
- Understanding the New Sense of Space that Mobile Devices Create
Teachers need to understand all of these points in order to effectively use social media in the classroom. It is argued that through the use of mobile devises, it can help connect students to their millennial culture. If they are able to connect the material to the world around them, then they might have a better chance of committing that knowledge to long-term memory to be used throughout life (Perry 2011).
As shown by some of the examples above, social media can be a great learning tool for students as long as they are taught how to analyze the sources that they come across. Social media can also help students better connect with the material in the classroom and better relate it to their culture. It is a constantly changing world, and the classroom learning strategies need to start changing with it!
Folger, T. (2008, April 1). Strange Molelike Animal Melts Ice Tunnels With Its Head. Discover. Retrieved June 28, 2016, from http://discovermagazine.com/1995/apr/01-molelike-animal-melts-ice-tunnels-with-its-head/
H. (2016). Good vs Bad Sources. Retrieved July 02, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TPlvTpHJWw
Perry, D. (2011, April 7). [Mobile Perspectives: On Teaching] Mobile Literacy. Educause Review. Retrieved June 28, 2016, from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2011/4/mobile-perspectives-on-teaching-mobile-literacy
