ACEC 2014: Riding the Social Media Wave in Education

The briefest of posts … Today I had the opportunity to present at ACEC 2014 in Adelaide; my first public appearance in my new home state. My chosen topic was the use of social media tools in the classroom; with a special emphasis upon Twitter, phrase.it and Chogger. Below you will find, as promised, the SlideShare upload of my slides. Of course, I would be more than happy for attendees to make whatever use of these that you may wish! I welcome comments and questions from all; not just those who were present.

PS: It was great to have Kathy Schrock (@kathyschrock) present for my session … and nodding in agreement. (I think!) PPS: Apologies for one or two misplaced images … a consequence of creating in Keynote, exporting to PowerPoint and then uploading to SlideShare.

June Busted Out All Over

Some of you may just get the obscure, tortured reference in my title. (Yes, to the Rodgers and Hammerstein song from Carousel. Sorry, there is no prize.) The recently completed month of June was certainly hectic and also marked my 55th birthday; I know I don’t look a day over 70! I want, in this post, to give an account of how June unfolded; of its challenges, its diversity and ultimately its rewards. It was a month that was, in most respects, amongst the most exhausting, yet productive and gratifying, of my career. Here’s why …

In the first week of the month I attended EduTech 2014 in Brisbane. I hadn’t intended to until I was invited by CEO Craig Macfarlane as a response to criticism of EdTech conferences in my Fractus Learning article “You Can’t Handle The Truth.” I was duly impressed that Craig had read my article, agreed with some of my concerns and made an effort to meet with me. There was much to like about EduTech this year; Adam Spencer was an awesome host and Sir Ken Robinson delivered the Day One keynote. But as my History teaching colleague Matthew Esterman (@mesterman on Twitter … follow him now!) rightly tweeted…

“Have loved having gr8 keynotes to listen to but #EduTECH has also affirmed my belief that the rock stars of ed are in our classrooms.”

And, I had the chance to meet some of those “stars” including Dan Haesler, Jarrod Lamshed, Steve Box, Corinne Campbell, Cathy Hunt, Zeina Chalich, Jacques du Toit and Matthew himself (… apologies, I know I’ve overlooked many others!) The opportunity to meet and talk with such great thinkers (and doers) will always be amongst the very best moments of any conference. I did get the opportunity to deliver a Show Floor Presentation entitled “Death to PowerPoint” although, ironically, I had to have my slides in PowerPoint! My greatest enjoyment came from attending and presenting at the #TeachMeet sessions instigated by Matthew (… told you he was a star!) These sessions saw “ordinary” teachers sharing ideas and successes with a small audience of their peers. If you’ve never attended a #TeachMeet why not organise your own!

The Connected Teacher connects.

The Connected Teacher connects … Great bald spot!

Whilst at EduTech I also had the opportunity to be interviewed by Corinne Campbell for the TER Podcast. Absolutely loathe, like most people, the sound of my own voice but you might want to check it out anyway. You’ll find me at the one hour 17 minute mark. (You can listen and subscribe to TERPodcast on iTunes, Android Smartphones and on Stitcher Online Radio.) As EduTech reached its final day I also had my latest article appear on Fractus Learning; “Declaring the Digital Rights of Students.” Of all that I’ve written over the past 2 or 3 years, this was the piece that I agonised over and revised several times. I would greatly appreciate feedback if you haven’t had the chance to read it as yet.

In the ten days after EduTech I wrote a guest post for the iAnnotate Blog and a Help Desk article for the Australian Teacher Magazine. Both will appear in the near future and we all know I’ll relentlessly promote them via Twitter. At the same time Noelene Callaghan (on Twitter @ncallaghan1) asked me to appear in the Australian Education Times as Teacher of the Month. (http://www.educationtimes.com.au/issue/july-2014) I welcomed this as another great opportunity to “put myself out there.” During this same period I also moderated a #histedchat on Social Media as a Learning Tool (You’ll find the Storify at sfy.co/ejkU) I also dealt with one other small matter; I assessed 120 essays and research tasks before writing the same number of reports.

The reports were due on June 26; I finished them on the 25th which was fortunate because at 9:00 am on June 27 I left for Atlanta and ISTE2014. That will be the subject of my next post! So, June was indeed awesome but I still can’t believe I survived unscathed; well, except for my birthday.

Image sourced from www.amazon.com

Image sourced from
www.amazon.com

 

 

 

 

The (Geriatric) Pirate Life For Me

The Knave of Skull Gulf This pirate be a jolly japester prone to the yo-ho-ho-ing, especially after a bottle of rum!

Toby “Cutthroat” Scott, The Knave of Skull Gulf
This pirate be a jolly japester prone to the yo-ho-ho-ing, especially after a bottle of rum!

In the next few weeks I’ll be celebrating my 55th birthday and I’m deep into my 33rd year in the classroom. As a beginning teacher I always imagined that 50 would and should “see me out.” But now, as many of you would know, the Australian Federal government is going to gradually increase the retirement and pension age. Those born in 1958 and earlier will not be affected … and yes, you’re calculations are right, I was born in 1959!

I want to keep teaching but I can’t imagine doing so for another 15 years. Just last week the Head of History at my school retired at age 76 after more than 50 years as a teacher. I’ve already had back surgery, I have two shonky knees, my hair is just about gone and well, everything aches. In 2013 I worked as a sessional tutor with Pre-Service teachers at the Banyo Campus of the Australian Catholic University and I hope to do so again this year. It was a great experience and I’ve always tried to share my accumulated “wisdom” with young teachers. Earlier this week a member of the school Administration asked me to supervise a Pre-Service teacher for a six week practicum. Indeed, he tried to insist by suggesting that I had a “moral obligation” as an experienced teacher to do so. I refused; this year I’m teaching four very large (I’d argue oversized) senior classes, I have a huge marking load, I’m the school’s Learning Technologies Coordinator and … I’m tired!

Corinne Campbell is quoted in a recent article, “Best Bloggers” from the IE magazine (Issue 1 Volume 44) as believing that “… presenting only the perfect scenario often adds to teacher anxieties … it is really important for all teachers to know that we are all going through the same experiences …” Corinne adds that a teacher’s blog should offer a “warts and all” account. This, of course, is actually quite ironic … warts are one of the few medical complaints I don’t have! Now, this is no great secret but let me say it anyway … the older you get, the more physically and mentally demanding teaching becomes. (PS: Be sure to connect with Corinne on Twitter @corisel or read her excellent blog at aboutteaching.net/)

So you’re asking, what about this “geriatric pirate business” in the title? Well, to explain … if you haven’t already done so, you should read the excellent book “Teach Like a Pirate” by American author and educator Dave Burgess. (Available from Amazon.) It offers teachers a genuine plan to “Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator.” The pirate of the title is an anagram which directs the reader towards the significant aspects of Passion, Immersion, Rapport, Ask and Analyse, Transformation and Enthusiasm. To conclude and “put it out there” warts and all, here for the world to see is my greatest fear. The passion and enthusiasm still burn bright, I wouldn’t have survived 33 years without them. But will these be enough to fight off the ravages of Old Father Time?

NOTE: The pirate name was created by the Pirate Name Generator (http://pirate.namegeneratorfun.com) whilst the photo was created with the “Make Me Pirate” app available for free from iTunes. Perhaps if I started dressing like this for school … the decision when to retire would be taken out of my hands! It’s worth a try.

 

For ACU Preservice Teachers (…and Interested Bystanders.)

For many of you … you may want to stop reading NOW! This blog post is almost exclusively for the preservice teachers enrolled in my tutorial group at the Brisbane Campus of ACU. But, by all means read on, if you’ve found your way here you undoubtedly have time to spare anyway. The focus of our August 13 tutorial was “Questioning” which to my thinking is one of the most problematic facets of teaching. The embedded PowerPoint does, however, offer some great tips and reminders for all of us; even those, like me, who have over 30 years teaching experience.
Most significantly, the suggestions come from a wide range of Australian teachers. These ideas were crowdsourced from Twitter on the evening prior to the tutorial. I offer my sincere thanks to all the members of @edutweetoz who provided a response. Pleasingly, a number of members of the tutorial group have now joined this Twitter community. I’m certain they will learn a great deal from the “shared wisdom” of the crowd.

PS: I will be posting again very soon in order to share my experiences from the 10th National Conference for Interactive Teaching and Learning. This two day IWB Net conference took place on the Gold Coast on August 9 and 10.

 

Questioning

The Meteoric Rise of a Rockstar

It has been a crazy week; an even crazier past 48 hours. Yesterday I visited three schools in my “district” looking at various approaches to BYOD with a view to 2015. In the afternoon I was fortunate enough to attend the Gold Coast’s first ever (much anticipated and long overdue) Teach Meet. I’m pleased to say that the event was everything I had expected and more. Close to 100 teachers were present at the Guardian Angels Primary School in Ashmore and I was amongst the ten presenters. I took the opportunity to outline the “Innova8” program that I have been conducting for one hour per week with my Year 8 class. This project is based upon the well known Google 20% Time, although you may also have heard it referred to as Genius Hour or The Passion Project. I had promised to upload my presentation for the benefit of those who attended but I hope others will also find it beneficial. If you are interested in starting a similar project I would certainly welcome and respond to your questions. You will also find a link within the presentation to take you to the students “Innova8.1 Showcase” … this site will continue to grow. Do use the presentation if you wish and by all means “show off” our showcase.

Innova8 (Google 20% Time)

During the afternoon I was referred to as an “EdTech Rockstar.” Now, I have to admit that I do revel in fancy titles and the odd dose of adulation. But, more importantly, it gave me a great opening for the guest lecture that I delivered this morning at the Banyo Campus of the Australian Catholic University. Introducing myself as a rockstar I was able to follow up with

“But just one look at this pasty old white guy, tells you that I’m far more Mick Jagger than Flo Rida.”

No need for you to agree with me, I do own mirrors! I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to speak to an auditorium full of our next generation of teachers. My chosen topic was “Create, Collaborate, Curate … and Become a Connected Teacher.” Although some aspects of my presentation are directly linked to the requirements of the unit, I hope other readers will also find my “musings” worthwhile. Once again, I am more than happy for you to use individual slides or the whole presentation if it is of value. I welcome also your questions and feedback.

ACU Lecture: Create, Collaborate and Curate

The Joy of Dance

The Final in a Series of Five Guest Posts

For this final instalment in my series featuring past students, I am delighted to introduce Lanah Heron. Lanah is based in New York City where she studies and performs with the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. In her post, Lanah focuses in particular upon the role that Facebook has played in her career. We would welcome your comments; after all, one day soon, she will be a star! 

I remember going into an open call for a modeling agency without knowing what I would need; whether I would even “fit the mould” or if it was a complete waste of my time. The model manager took an interest in me and asked, ‘Do you have photos?’

I said, “Yes, but I don’t have them with me.” I still wasn’t even sure I should be there. “You could look at them on my Facebook page.”

Lanah Joy Heron

A year later I had worked on commercials for the UK, Indonesia, Korea, Australia and had done “bits and pieces” in a few TV programs. (Nothing major, trust me!) And this was just because I had, in my vanity, posted some dance portfolio images in an album on a social media site.

I am, first and foremost, a dancer who has only dabbled in television. Whilst I’m yet to receive an invitation to join a dance company via Facebook, I learned that my profile was in essence a networking tool. Everyone has a computer. You cannot run a business without one. And now most businesses have a Facebook profile. I’d been taught that, as a dancer, my body is my business; so, of course, it needs a profile.

So I started a little “judicious” filtering. People viewing my photos will notice a few things about me; I am an artist and a dancer, I am fit and healthy and sometimes, like a proper young person, I go out with a few friends. And yes, some photos were taken down for the simple fact that they were, well, “hideous.” It might not get me a job directly, but presenting myself in an appropriate and, for the most part, professional light can’t hurt my chances. Whilst I’m in this industry, no one will ever hold back from taking me on because there is a photo on my Facebook page showing me in “terrible form.” Not that I do that sort of thing anyway!

Student Directed Innovation and Cool Creation Tools

This year, at my own request (!), I am teaching Year 8 for the first time in perhaps two decades. I have the same group of 29 students for both English and History. This gives me seven lessons per week, ranging in length from 45 to 65 minutes. Of course, I realised early on that having the same group allowed for all sorts of possibilities; not least of all the opportunity to operate a “timetable within a timetable.”

My first decision was to give the students themselves some measure of control over what and how they learn. Of course, I remain a slave to the curriculum and the need to compile (largely useless?) reports. Still, I realised I could easily cede one lesson per week to the students in order that they might pursue their “passion.” I have read a great deal recently about how the Internet is now passion-based rather than content focused. Given that I am working with class group 8.1, I decided to call the project Innova8.1 (I know it’s hardly original!) The idea was first introduced to the students via my favourite iPad app, Haiku Deck. I’ve embedded the presentation below … please feel free to adapt and use it for your own purposes.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

The early signs are great … not surprisingly the students look forward to this weekly “release” from the usual constraints of the classroom. Their interests are as varied as you might expect; animation, digital music, photography, anime, mash-ups just to name a few. My only expectations are that the students must both create and share content.

In reality, I have had to make the greatest adjustments; to allow students  to move freely around the room, to sit on the floor, to listen to music, to seek the advice of their peers … to engage in noisy, laugh-filled student directed learning. Once or twice I’ve come close to snapping and demanding silence until I remember I’ve given them permission! Each Innova8.1 lesson begins with some sharing of either student created content or with me introducing a new Web 2.0 tool or an iPad app. (Oops; probably should have mentioned that we are 1:1 Apple Macbook whilst I make regular use of my iPad. Hell, I even started lending it to students despite the separation anxiety.) Now, finally I have also included here via Scribd a list that I’ve called “15 Cool Tools and Apps for Student Creation.” I have begun to introduce and demonstrate these to my class. They, much like me, seem to like nothing better than trying and mastering a new tool.

As always, I would welcome your comments, suggestions or questions; I’m already convinced that “Student Directed Learning” must become a part of what we ALL do.

15 Cool Creation Tools by Simon McKenzie

Wit and Twitter: On Education, Information and Knowledge

The Fourth in a Series of Five Guest Posts

Over the past thirty two years I must have taught a huge number of students. Like all teachers, there are some I remember fondly and many more that I choose to expunge immediately from my memory. Daryl Morini is a young man who belongs squarely in that smaller, first group. I’m sure he will be delighted to read that I have even elevated him to the pantheon of past greats … Daryl relishes words like pantheon! He is a highly gifted student; fluent in several languages, soon to complete a Phd and destined for a glittering career in International Relations. It is our collective good fortune that Daryl has agreed to provide an erudite, thought provoking guest post. (Which also says some nice things about me … kudos.) All the hyperlinks are of Daryl’s creation and well worth exploring.

Wit and Twitter: On Education, Information and Knowledge

Daryl Morini

The creative and responsible use of social media in the classroom can open up a thousand doors in students’ minds. It can kindle their intellectual interests and passions, it can develop their imagination and empathy and, most importantly, it can nourish their curiosity and reason – and leave them hungry for life-long learning.

However, I am equally convinced that the unfettered, unreflective and irresponsible use of Twitter and Facebook in education could feasibly lead to our long-term intellectual stagnation bred from short-sighted faddishness.

As you may already be able to tell, where some see a digital utopia and others a hellish dystopia in the social media revolution, I see endless shades of grey in a purgatory full of clear opportunities and hidden dangers. I am, in many ways, a bit of a self-confessed dinosaur when it comes to my own generation’s penchant for the free flow of personal information into the overlapping public spheres which make up “the Internets.”

Graduating from Aquinas College in 2006, I pursued a Bachelor of Arts in History and International Relations. Enamoured with the study of history – which I first fully embraced in Simon’s classroom – I took this passion with me into my postgraduate study on the burning questions of international war and peace. I intend (or, rather, fervently hope) to submit my PhD in early 2014. My research focuses on preventive diplomacy, which is a fancy way of saying that I seek to understand how wars have been prevented in the past, and how they might be prevented in the future.

Looking back, I can now see that my online activities did contribute to getting me this far. I worked countless hours (and I still do) on online extra-curricular projects, including working for three years as a volunteer editor on e-International Relations, the largest student-run website in my field. Furthermore, I have complemented my studies with three internships in government departments and major international organisations, including a brief stint at the United Nations late last year. Paradoxically, I have been a somewhat timid social networker, preferring public conferences, lecture halls and face-to-face meetings.

Let me offer three philosophical points explaining my highly-qualified embrace of social media in general, followed by a final set of practical policy positions on social media in education specifically.

Firstly, my brief time using Twitter has convinced me of this: it is a poor substitute for real conversations. Rather than a global dialogue, I see a cacophony of competing and self-promotional soliloquies. This is not to say that fruitful exchanges do not take place on Twitter, or that useful connections are not made, or that crucial information is not shared across the world in real-time. Of course they are, and that is a wonderful thing. My point is simply that Twitter seems to reward (with additional followers) members of the Twitterati on the wit, cleverness or humour of their remarks, rather than on the truth, originality or social benefit of their reflections. This was brought home to me during the 2012 U.S. foreign policy election debate, during which the live stream of Twitter comments very quickly descended into name-calling and humorous Internet memes of purely entertainment value.

Maybe I am the one missing the point here. I am quite possibly standing on the wrong side of history. But I do find something deeply unsatisfying about the vacuity of some Twitter exchanges or, rather, the hollowness of SMS-length online conversations in comparison to the richness of face-to-face communication and debate.

Secondly, time. Time is finite, fleeting and fast. It is also inevitably zero-sum. The hours you spend each day checking your inbox, posting on Facebook or tweeting to your followers is time you will never retrieve. You may, of course, justify it as a wise social investment in your own online influence, if you believe in that. As a thought experiment, I like to question whether our greatest intellectual ancestors – who frequently took years or decades of undivided attention to accomplish their major works – would have found the time and concentration span to complete their magnum opus in the age of Twitter. For these reasons, I try to minimise my online networking time due to this simple trade-off: one hour I spend reading the opinions of the moderns is one less hour I can spend with the Ancients – a Thucydides or a Plato.

Of course, not all dead sages are more relevant to modern life than today’s Twitter feeds, but they often are. The distinction to make here is between information and knowledge. Simply put, we are inundated, water-boarded and almost drowned by the sheer volume of information we consume across the range of modern media. Amid that sea of data, some simple wisdom from the past can become a life-saving raft. You can know everything that is going on in the world without ever understanding why or how. And that is the difference between acquiring a breadth of information and a depth of knowledge. Both are important, I simply value the latter more.

Finally, and here I start to sound like a roaring dinosaur, the jury is still out on the long-term social consequences of mass social media and nternet usage. In other words, this is a huge, untested social experiment. Some results are in, however, and not all are as peachy as we sometimes assume or hope. Some questions we should be debating include:

Is Facebook making us lonelier? Is Google making us stupid? Is Twitter making us more narcissistic? Is our brain’s capacity to concentrate being eroded by our shorter and shorter attention spans? Does the Internet encourage mental illness? Should babies play with iPads? How young is too young? Do we have a clue about what the likely long-term effects will be? Are social media making us freer, or slaves to spies and censorship?

I do not have the answers, but I think the questions are very poignant indeed. It is a debate worth having.

So much for my general concerns about social media. What of their use in education?

This is where my hard-headed optimistic side comes in. I fundamentally agree with Simon that schools have wasted too much time playing catch-up with social media. They need to integrate this new reality into the core of the curriculum, and they need to do so urgently. This conclusion may sound counter-intuitive following on the heels of the highly-qualified above analysis. But where else, if not at school, will pupils – who will soon graduate as citizens – learn how to use the internet safely and responsibly? Schools are perfectly placed to play the role of society’s first line of defence, by raising awareness, warning of dangers and preventing the potentially deleterious effects of social media and internet use I have mentioned.

Moreover, I have been impressed by the very creative ways in which Twitter has been harnessed, for example, to teach about history and its ongoing relevance. I personally congratulated Alwyn Collinson, an Oxford history graduate, for his brilliant initiative in live-tweeting the entire Second World War. By showing how ordinary people experienced, suffered and fought in the war, this project demonstrates to contemporaries the daily reality of war, in a way that academic monographs and elite-focussed history books are simply unable to. This is a very useful way to use social media in education, so long as it does not reduce history to funny caricatures.

I similarly congratulate Simon on his clever use of Twitter in the classroom. As a university tutor, I definitely see its educational potential. And I join him in proclaiming: ‘Death to PowerPoint!’ As General McMaster said of the U.S. military’s over-reliance on confusing PowerPoint presentations: “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.” I also have experience with the notoriously clunky and user-unfriendly learning software Blackboard, which lecturers quietly curse under their breaths; many are resorting to WordPress and Twitter to host classroom blogs as educational alternatives, and I whole-heartedly encourage them in doing so.

In other words, educational institutions should be the vanguard of the social media revolution. I endorse this policy position having carefully weighed and pondered the aforementioned risks and unknown factors. In the end, the Internet is a tool, and like all tools it is morally-neutral – capable of being used to good or bad ends. The more good people, like Simon, we have working hard to persuade fence-sitters, the better off we will be.

Daryl Morini is a PhD student in International Relations at the University of Queensland. Follow him on his modest Twitter account: @DarylMorini.

 

Dietetics and Cupcakes: An Unlikely Marriage

The Third in a Series of Five Guest Posts

With the Christmas break in full swing I was planning on taking a break from my various blogs. However, I then received another guest post and realised it would require little true effort from me to add it here. (Yep, I’m definitely in holiday mode!) I caught up with Kate Odgers-Jewell last year at a 10 year reunion for her graduating class. I was surprised to learn that she has since embarked upon not one but in fact two careers and is also close to completing doctoral studies; only wish I had that much energy. Perhaps more importantly for readers of this blog, social media has a significant place in both of Kate’s careers.

My name is Kate Odgers-Jewell. I completed high school in 2001 and went straight to University. I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the sciences, but wasn’t clear on the end goal. After a year of studying Applied Science majoring in Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry, I realized that nutrition and dietetics was the perfect career for me! I then changed Universities and started on the pathway to becoming a dietitian! This entailed completing a Bachelor of Biomedical Science, followed by a Masters in Nutrition and Dietetics, which I followed up with Honours after being offered a great topic and scholarship for a sixth month project.

After graduating I began working as a clinical dietitian at the Gold Coast Hospital, during which time my mother decided to start a cupcake business, Cupcake Passion, and asked for my help. I offered to assist her with the establishment of the business, for example building a website, testing recipes, starting a Facebook page, market research, and pricing our products. We assumed that the business would be a little hobby and that I would be able to return my focus to my dietetics career within a few short months.  Cupcake Passion has now been running for four and a half years, and business is really booming! Since starting the business, I have taken a two-month break to travel around Europe, and then decided to take on a PhD in the area of group-based education for chronic disease management. I am currently at the half way mark in my doctoral studies, and am looking forward to finishing in early 2014.

Kate Odgers-Jewell: Dietitian and Cupcake Provider!

During my post-graduate studies I have worked as a tutor, lecturer and lab demonstrator.  The communication with students in this line of work is via a University based ‘blackboard’ platform, which allows me to email students, write memos and place posts on discussion boards. Colleagues have also used Facebook pages for their subjects in the past year to keep students up to date with any changes to lecture times or assignments, and to provide additional resources. This Social Media option has been found to be very beneficial. I would definitely like to try this with my students in future, as I have found that students generally check their Facebook accounts much more frequently than they do their university accounts!

We utilize various social media platforms for Cupcake Passion, including a Facebook fan page, Flickr photostream, a Twitter account (which I have linked to our Facebook page to minimize time wastage), as well as Pinterest boards and Instagram. At the moment we mainly use our Facebook fan page and Flickr photostream to keep customers up to date with our photos as well as any current news. I think that customers enjoy the interactivity of our Facebook fan page, whilst it certainly makes life easier for us and allows us to spend less time updating our website.  If I had more time on my hands, I would be more active on our Pinterest and Instagram accounts too! I think that social media is certainly beneficial for businesses- and I love the fact that all of the information required can be found so quickly and easily.

Just one of the astonishing creations available from Cupcake Passion. Look for them on Facebook.

For residents of the Gold Coast, be certain to look for Cupcake Passion on Facebook. I’m sure this photo alone convinces you that you need to!

 

 

An Ordinary Girl Living An Extraordinary Life

The Second in a Series of Five Guest Posts

I consider it a privilege to know Jesinta Campbell. In 2008 and 2009, I taught her at Aquinas College on the Gold Coast and she was an exceptional English student, hard-working, sensitive and insightful. I particularly remember her heart-felt response to the well-known Jodi Picoult novel My Sister’s Keeper. Jesinta is, to my mind, the perfect counter argument to the stereotypical perception of the “dumb beauty queen.” She is capable of so much and I know that gradually Australia and the world will come to see her in a very different light. Jesinta has rightly become a role model for young, female Australians but it’s high time that her “demographic” broadened. Yes, she is extraordinarily beautiful but she considers herself just “an ordinary girl living an extraordinary life.”

When I asked a number of past students to offer their opinions on Social Media and education, she was quick to respond and found time in her hectic schedule to provide the insights which follow. But, before that, here is the only photo you will ever see with this caption!

The Connected Teacher and The Miss Universe Finalist

 

It’s fair to say that social media, in all its forms, has a huge influence on our lives. Even if you have no interaction personally with any platform– Facebook, Twitter or Instagram – all have become such a big part of our culture that almost everyone (unless you live under a rock) has heard of them. The term “social media” has become a part of the vernacular – not a day would go by that you don’t talk about it or read about it. What most people don’t realize is that even if you have nothing to do with it, it has influenced you or someone you know. Print publications have had to make adjustments due to information being so readily available online and TV shows have begun to include it in production so that they can reach a wider audience and interact with viewers. Politicians have adopted social media strategies to get in touch with people they usually wouldn’t have access to and some of the stories you read in the newspapers have actually been sourced from places like Twitter.

In my field of work, social media is everything; not a day, in fact, not even a few hours (unless I am sleeping) go by without me checking out what the people I am following on Twitter are writing, updating my blog or Facebook status or even posting a picture on Instagram. It’s fair to say that I am very familiar with social media and how it works, it’s often part of my contracts with certain brands or TV shows. I am contracted to tweet and use Instagram.

This brings me to my next point. Should we allow social media to be used in classrooms by our students? My immediate answer is “yes” followed by a very quick “Only if…” Like anything there are going to be pros and cons and social media is not excused from this. In fact I believe that if schools are considering the idea of utilizing social media in the classroom they need to be very realistic about the positive and negative effects of it. I have been blessed to have had positive experiences with social media. Some people aren’t so lucky. We’ve seen sports stars “come undone” with careless tweeting and we’ve all witnessed the very public effects that Twitter trolls had upon media personality Charlotte Dawson. We’ve all viewed YouTube videos that have gone viral, divided religious groups and been the catalyst for huge riots. Then, there are the stories that none of us hear about; the bullying, intimidation and online abuse of people on platforms such as Facebook.

Social media can be dangerous, very dangerous if you don’t know what you are dealing with. I recently attended a luncheon with our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, along with nine other young people who were seen as the Top 10 Most Influential people on social media under the age of 30. I felt so honoured to be included in the group alongside TV presenters, Olympians, sport stars, actors and bloggers. It was a fantastic lunch; we spent two hours with the PM discussing our experiences and interactions with Social Media. We shared personal stories and our own ideas and viewpoints on various online platforms. One of the topics brought up was the NBN (National Broadband Network) being introduced to Australia.

For those of you who don’t know, the NBN will allow 93% of workplaces, schools and homes to be connected to a superfast broadband network allowing communication to happen all but instantaneously – yep, that’s possible! After our Prime Minister explained the ins and outs of it all to us and the multiple benefits that the NBN would have for Australia, we raised a point, the most valid of the lunch in my opinion; how was the government going to manage the effects that this superfast, super-accessible network would have on our youth?

Having access to this kind of network also has obvious benefits. However, we said we would all like to see programs integrated into the current school curriculum that teach students how to conduct themselves on social media and how to manage their interactions with other people on whatever platform they are using. The “trouble” with social media is anonymity, young people feel as if they don’t have to take responsibility for their words. What most people fail to realize is that everything you post is just like walking in wet concrete; it leaves an imprint forever. So, in reality, we should all be even more conscious of everything we post, instead of the nonchalant manner in which we are currently approaching social media. If our government and schools can teach students how to conduct themselves on social media and raise their awareness about the impact their interactions have, then I believe social media is fantastic tool that can be harnessed for good in the classroom.

In the lead up to the Miss Universe pageant I spent hours on social media. What most people don’t realize is that when you compete in the pageant you need to be up to date and have opinions on current affairs and what is happening in the world around you. You are constantly interacting with people from all around the world and are interviewed and asked questions on a daily basis about any topic you could possibly imagine. Every day in the lead up to pageant I would read every major newspaper in the world via twitter and follow humanitarian groups, charities and influential world leaders on blogs, Facebook and of course Twitter. This allowed me to broaden my 18-year-old view of the world by being exposed to what was happening around me. This simply would not have been possible without the aid of social media.

I am a glass half full kind of girl so when I was asked the question if Social Media should be included in the classroom I couldn’t help but say yes. When I reflect on the way in which it has broadened my world I can’t help but see the positive impact it could have in the classroom. My glass is always half full but I am not wearing Coke bottle glass goggles so I am aware of the negative impact it could also have. This is why I say yes to social media in the classrooms, only if our government and teachers can find a way to first educate students on the power and potential negative effects.

Now, Jesinta has 36,000 followers on Twitter (…whilst her former teacher has 328!) but if you want to join the hordes she can be found @JesintaCampbell. More importantly we would love some feedback and comments. Remember that this young woman is one of the most influential “under 30s” on Social Media … and she has the ear of Prime Minister Gillard.