Social Media in The Classroom

Can we use social media as a way of communication in the classroom or would that we an invasion of the students privacy?

There was recently an incident in the Stellenbosch area where a young male teacher, in an all-girls school, send friend requests to his students. The parents as well as the students were extremely uncomfortable about it.

Why did the teacher want access to their photos and opinions? Teenagers are at a stage in their life that they don’t even want their parent to have access to these things, why should a teacher? The headmaster was informed and the teacher was reprimanded.

This is an example of how NOT to use social media in a classroom.

It is not a tool for parents and teacher to check up on the teenagers. What a learner did over the weekend has nothing to do with us as teachers. We can guide them to make the right decisions but their actions will be determined by themselves.

Social media, a platform that teens seem to be using 24/7, should be used to give information to our learners. Twitter is a great way to do that. A page can be made for learners to visit without giving the teacher access to their respective profiles. The change of a test date, reminder of homework or just informative YouTube links about work. Learners could also post about things that they have learned or photos at a field trip. Learning from your peers is an unused gem for teachers, they learn easier and it makes learning fun.

Reminder would also work great, no personal information is shared through it, in contrast to WhatsApp where your number is accessible to the whole group. Facebook friend requests are a bad idea especially since 2008, when teens started posting photos that are inappropriate for their teachers to view.

If an international platform could be made for learners and teachers around the world, think about how much further we could bring education. Videos and concepts could be shared about classwork. New learning ideas could come from across the globe, different ways to teach subjects and explaining the work. Learners could share their methods of studying for exams and doing projects.

Think about creating international group projects to develop intercontinental relationships. Students could learn from one another about their culture, food and country. Schools could give more potential to students than we would have ever thought possible.

We should not ban its use because it was managed wrong at a time. It should be used to our advantage in engaging learners.