Topic 7 – Designing for Learning Using Social Networking

Comment posted on 10th of October on Kayla Chester’s Blog

Hi Kayla,

Thank you for your post on the platform SeeSaw.

I find it fascinating that students coming through the younger years will see social media as an integral and normal part of their learning which is quite opposite to how I see students use social media in high school.

While students might use applications like Facebook to communicate with each other and share snapshots of their learning in class, none of this is sanctioned by the school as we have a strict social media policy for the protection of the students in our care.

What is fantastic is that a platform like SeeSaw is that it could be a positive way for social media to be integrated into a students learning while separating their personal social media from class.

Like Class Dojo (“Learn all about ClassDojo ♥”, 2019) there is an aspect to the platform where by parents can be given updates about the learning happening in the class in a day however I think that SeeSaw has a greater inter-student engagement which from what I understand is not as strong in Class Dojo.

While students could, of course, use access to the profiles of other students for negative behaviours, I am encouraged that there would be greater transparency of student work so that students can learn from the learning of their peers and give positive feedback on their learning.

As an early childhood educator, do you think social media platforms like this will become a staple in the classroom due to most people now having a social media profile for their lives? What would/does that look like for you in the age group that you teach?

References:
Learn all about ClassDojo ♥. (2019). Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://www.classdojo.com/