SOCIAL MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION

I have had a good experience with social media and communication, and it has been such interesting to collaborate again using mind map. Also working with my partners has been a building stone in improving my collaboration skills.

Unlike last time where we had to use google drive to collaborate, this time we used mainly emails and phones. And still it worked out only with some few challenges like failing to have a common schedule and sometimes a member taking long to get on board. But it was wonderful still to work to together.

There was an element of how social media and communication is affecting language and below I have some few points to put across.  

Cyber Slang is the popular shorthand language used for easy communication through internet based emails and SMS.

Most people use the cyber slang abbreviations in texting, messaging and writing in social networks. The word Slang means the use of informal words and expressions which are not considered standard in the dialect or standard.

Social media and communication is affecting mainly the younger generation and if we are to deal with them and understand them we need to know their way of communication.

 It has the advantages like

1. It lowers the task of formal speech or writing.

2. The users are familiar with such code words so that it reduces the key strokes.

3. It replaces the conventional synonym.

4. It is a tattoo term used by people of higher status and responsibility.

5. Slangs create novel meanings for the existing words.

 6. It uses least number of characters needed to convey a message.

7. Punctuations, grammar and capitalization etc. can be avoided.

The effect of texting is mainly realised in the grammar it may lead to loss of words permanently with time.

The majority of slang is invented by teenagers. This serves the added purpose of helping them to separate themselves further from their parents' generation, almost as an act of rebellion.

Also many consider users of certain slang as socially and educationally inferior.

It is uncertain whether text messaging has doomed the future of the English language, but one thing is for sure: Students will continue to text.

With Comic strips first of all it was very interesting to create my first ever comic strip and that experience pushes me to look forward for creating more. Yes it has a big potential it  holds for digital pedagogy  because;

·         They are very interesting since they are visual and short representing a big story.

·         Comic strips have a motivating power.

·         There is sequential learning. 

THE IMPACT OF A CHANGING EDUCATION LANDSCAPE

As new technologies and media are used more and more in teaching and learning, as well as in the home and throughout social life, so as educators we need to develop more than just their ICT skills; we need a broad digital awareness of the wider context in which technologies and media operate to wrap around these skills in order that we can help our learners to participate in this increasingly digital world.

So the changing education landscape is due to the constantly emerging technologies that do have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry. This automatically calls for a class of educators that are dynamic not static in their approaches to teaching and learning. I am lucky to be one of the teachers who is being enlightened by CCTI on how technology is changing the education landscape.

The changing education landscape is turning me over as a teacher in a number of ways and I am happy to share with you some of these.

Learning how to meeting the needs of all learners

As educators, we know the power of Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.  Technology is facilitating my ability to meet the needs of all kinds of learners, by introducing me to a number of approaches.

Extended Classroom Communities

Technology facilitates our ability to extend classroom community by using web-based platforms. This helps me to use this platform to discuss homework, post assignments, and interact with my students.

Rise of Web-Based Research

We still use libraries, but so much of our research and learning is now more web-based.  What used to take hours in the library to find, we find instantaneously.  As a result, we need to sort through huge amounts of information efficiently.  We know how to get and use information. I would argue that because it takes less time to find information, we spend more time digesting, thinking, and learning about new information.

Expanding Audience

Students' sense of audience is completely different.  When I was in high school in the, the audience was the teacher.  When I started teaching high school in 2009, the audience was the teacher and peers.  In the 21st century, it's the WORLD.  Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other online platforms changed our notion of audience. This has helped me get connected to very useful people out there.

Interactive Textbooks

The way that we think of textbooks is completely changing. It is no longer limited to merely text and pictures. Today’s textbooks often have web-based sites that include assessments, animations, additional materials, videos, and other materials to support the learning of new content. This has helped me to develop interesting learning materials.

Sharing of the materials.

It is interesting that if I want to find out how a colleague is teaching a certain topic it is a matter of emailing or using google drive and it is done.

  

The changing education landscape calls for adjustments in our teaching practices and I feel I need to help my learners Learn how to;

 Find and select: Knowing what information is available and being able to retrieve it.

Organise and process: Using and processing needs. This may involve for example classification, integration, calculation, summarising and storage.

Create: Making new products, for example by adapting, applying, designing, inventing or authoring.

 Communicate and collaborate: Presenting, sharing and transferring products and information in suitable forms to produce results such as informing, persuading or engaging others.

Review and improve: Making judgements about the authenticity, honesty, relevance, or accuracy of information, plus ethical and value judgements. Exploring options, refining and improving

Outcomes. All of these skills will develop in combination and lead to:

Understanding: Using modelling, visualisation and real-life experiences to develop deeper knowledge and appreciation of subject concepts and complex ideas. Introduce digital literacy strategies directly into schools, pointing out the implications of this research for practice and identifying a range of emerging examples of classroom practices which exhibit aspects of digital literacy development.

Learning and innovation skills: Learning and innovation skills are what separate students who are prepared for increasingly complex life and work environments in the 21st century and those who are not. They include: 

·          creativity and innovation

·          critical thinking and problem solving

·          communication and collaboration

So I need to help my learners be creative, critical thinkers and collaborative.

 Information, media and technology skills:

  To be effective in the 21st century, teachers and students must be able to exhibit a range of functional and     

   Critical thinking skills, such as:

·         information literacy

·         media literacy

·         ICT (Information, Communications and Technology)

              Literacy

Life and career skills: Today’s life and work, environments require far more than thinking skills and content knowledge. The ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age requires students to pay rigorous attention to developing adequate life and career skills, such as:

·          flexibility and adaptability

·          initiative and self-direction

·          social and cross-cultural skills

·          productivity and accountability

·          leadership and responsibility

So I need to help the learners to achieve these skills.

Knowledge of digital tools: hardware/software awareness and competence

Critical skills: evaluation and contextualisation

Social awareness: understanding your identity, collaborating, and communicating to audiences in context.

 Safeguard learners online: protect, educate and empower everyone to keep safe and secure online;

 Make learning personal: support learners to make effective, discriminating use of technology that meets their needs. 9 There are many websites aiming to support teachers who are developing new approaches to teaching and learning with digital literacy.

So the pedagogies that are unappealing and disengaging needs to be changed to help learners fit the challenge of the 21^st century

Please have a look at my wordle.