PrefaceIn the last few years Social Media become an intrinsic thing to humanity. Just some years ago it was impossible to imagine a teacher using Internet features as educational tools to store information, assess students or work in a cooperative effort. Students are surrounded by technology and the teachers need to face this new situation and take advantage of that to reinforce learning process.
This Professional Development Module has as an objective offer teachers possibilities to work with content beyond the school borders using Social Media, making students more proactive and aware of the importance of creating information and sharing it. Students have received a more proactive role in education, and the information they are exposed to do not come only from the school but also from the internet. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Blogs and many other tools available online take part on the lives of most students. Social Media has been accepted as a tool used inside and outside schools in order to facilitate the work of a teacher, making the content more meaningful, interactive and interesting to students. This is a new age for education and Social Media has presented itself as an ally in this process.
Social MediaWith the advent of the internet and the appearance of social media, Google and other tools, students have realized how important their role in their own education and how they can go beyond of what they learn at school. Never before students have felt they have the power to express themselves and learn so much in the meantime. According to Blakenship (2011. P.11), social media presents some benefits in education like “greater engagement, greater interest, students taking more control and responsibility for their education”. Tools like Facebook and blogs have been thoroughly used by students; and teachers are becoming more aware of the potential of these tools in order to make classes more effective and contents more accessible.
The target audience are High School teachers of any subject, since the techniques and ideas can be adapted to any content. However, the training session will be held at first at schools in Brazil and in Malaysia. The Professional Development Module will be held in eight hours. “Social Media as an Educational Tool beyond the classroom” is a result of the work of the teachers Adriana Pires de Sousa (Brasilia, Brazil), Leo Watson Nicholas Nyalong (Sri Aman, Malaysia) and Patricia Pereira Ferreira (Rondônia, Brazil) based on the educational needs of each school community and from the knowledge and experience acquired in the International Leaders in Education Program in a partnership with Arizona State University. The Module is divided into four sessions, being the last session the wrap-up activities and it will be developed in eight hours, in four days. The first part of the Module consists on an overview about why and how it is possible to use Social Media in education. The teachers will create a Facebook or Fakebook Profile (according to their preferences) on the following session and a Gmail account if they do not have one in order to work with their coworkers at first. On the third session participants are supposed to work with sites and blogs, being able to identify the most important features and possibilities to work with them with students. On the last session participants are supposed to design a lesson plan applying the knowledge acquired along the previous three sessions using Social Media. They are supposed to present their work comparing and sharing their ideas. In the end of the module teachers will be able to work with Social Media in order to enhance students` learning making them more participative not only in class but beyond the classroom borders. Students should be able to share information among themselves after a time without the influence and guidance of the teacher, becoming more independent, responsible and participative in producing information in a larger scale. This information should then be used not only inside the school but also beyond its borders. StatisticsBrazilThere are 3,5 million online students in Brazil.
77,2% of these students are looking for a better curriculum. There are 1.424 institutions offering online education in Brazil. Taken from http://www.intelectacursos.com.br/blog/index.php/dicas-noticias-atualidades/dados-estatisticos-sobre-os-cursos-online-no-brasil/ MalaysiaMalaysia may not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of online education, but the small Asian nation is forging ahead at full speed when it comes to opening up new opportunities for learning online.
One of the nation’s biggest e-learning schools is Asia e University, based out of Kuala Lumpur. It has been a boon for people in under-served areas, many of which have abundant access to the Internet but not universities or higher level degree programmes. And Asia e University doesn’t just reach Malaysians; it offers education to 31 different Asian nations and has partnered with an impressive number of schools to deliver blended and fully online programmes, even developing an MBA programme through the International Business School of Scandinavia in Denmark. While online education in Malaysia and Asia as a whole still has a long way to go, it’s clear that the country is going to be making waves in distance education for some time to come. Taken from http://monitor.icef.com/2012/06/8-countries-leading-the-way-in-online-education/ |
Objectives for this PDMThis Professional Development Module has as an objective:
Access students’ learning using web based platforms demonstrating knowledge and skills on how to use these tools.
Are you prepared to be my teacher?Changing Education Paradigms
A video for teachers and educators. Think about it... Brazil and MalaysiaInternetThe graphic below highlights the proliferation of high-speed Internet connections in ten countries, which represent nearly 67% of the global total unique IP addresses.
Online Students |