Social Media and Preservice Educators
By: Samantha Clonch
Although social media has only been around for less than two decades, it has become an essential part of American society. Many see the platforms as distracting and harmful to the health and intellect of the users. However, educators throughout the country are working hard to change that perception of social media by bringing it into their classrooms and teaching their students constructive and educational ways to use it. Such usage of social media has begun to transform classrooms, stimulating student engagement and promoting out-of-the-box forms of assessment.
Since first learning about the use of social media in the classroom, I have been fascinated by the concept, and I set out to explore it further through my Master’s project. As I explored the topic, I discovered a lack of research into social media in the classroom. Few researchers have taken the time to see what impact social media has on learning, and hardly any have explored what educators think about social media in the classroom, which is a crucial element to understanding its implementation and impact. As an instructor of preservice educators, the lack of research into social media in the classroom and the views of preservice educators on the subject was glaringly obvious to me. Because such educators will play such an important role in the future of education, it is critical to be aware of what their positions are and what they are learning through their educator preparation programs.
It was this lack of research into the views and positions of preservice educators on social media in the classroom that led me to my Master’s project. The majority of the project centers around a hypothetical course focusing on social media in the classroom for an educator preparation program. The course is designed to teach preservice educators about the uses of social media in the classroom and the potential issues that they need to be aware of and prepare for. For the research portion of the project, I took one lesson from the course and incorporated it into the educator preparation course I teach as part of my graduate assistantship, Introduction to Educational Technology at Bowling Green State University. The students completed a pre-survey before completing the lesson and then completed another survey after the lesson was over. The surveys explored the students’ views regarding social media in the classroom and the impact the lesson had on those positions.
I am still compiling the data from both surveys, but initial analysis indicates that 69.39% of respondents to the postlesson survey are more likely to use social media in their future classrooms for lessons/assignments as a result of the lesson they participated in. The initial analysis also indicates that the lesson increased the students’ knowledge of uses of social media in the classroom, as well as their knowledge of the limitations of social media for students.
Although no certain conclusions can be made until data analysis is complete (please see my final paper for said analysis and conclusions), this data does indicate that teaching preservice educators about social media in the classroom has positive impacts on their perception of such technology and increases the likelihood of the implementation of social media as a classroom technology tool in the future. Such changes in social media perception and use bode well for student engagement and learning.
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