Social Media and Gaming in Education

For this week's class, we played around/investigated social media sites and gaming.

Most of the social media sites on our list were sites I'm already on - Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter. I focused on Facebook for my in-depth media site.

I've been on Facebook since 2008, Facebook tells me. I started off to connect with friends who lived out of state; I was living in Ohio and missing my Massachusetts friends. Over time, I started finding people I'd lost touch with, like a housemate from college and a friend living in Amsterdam. I used the messaging feature a lot, because I wasn't really texting yet. Posting pictures was so much fun. When we moved back to Massachusetts, I was able to show my Ohio friends my new house. I stopped printing out pictures altogether and just posted them. My mother joined, just so she could keep up with pictures of my kids! Then came videos, and it was fun to repost other people's videos, or post my daughter's floor routine from her gymnastics meet. When my mother joined, I started being more aware of what I was saying. All of a sudden I didn't write about how much wine I'd had. Stories about teachers who had lost their jobs for posting inappropriate things scared me. I even deleted a few pictures of me at a bar with friends. I like to look back to see all of my old posts, old pictures, and basically get a look at how my life was 5 years ago. It's my (semi-)permanent record at this point, like a modern photo album.

I'd never really thought about Facebook as related to education before, other than the communications we get from my daughters' school district, or posts from the superintendent's blog. My Facebook friend list is almost exclusively personal, except a few friend/authors' professional sites. A few acquaintances post thought-provoking articles, sometimes about education. Today on Facebook, a former colleague posted an article about Common Core math, and a college friend posted an article about charter schools. Rather than friending/liking any organizations or other PD sources, I find that the professional development I get out of Facebook is incidental but fascinating. When others curate the articles for me, it's almost more fun.

In terms of using social media for educational purposes, I find professional resources on Twitter and sometimes Pinterest (I'm sure I'd find more resources on Pinterest but I can't handle this many social media sites as it is!). I find article links to follow and reviews of books coming out. I would love to follow the library/education/writing chats, but I can't find time for it right now. I haven't used Tumblr or Instagram for anything but fun.

For kids, I think there's limited educational value in using Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram. One exception is Fakebook; I love the idea of making fake Facebook accounts for historical figures or literary characters. Ning could be a part of a classroom experience if an issue took center stage, like an environmental issue or a government campaign. It's less personally focused and more interest focused.

We also explored gaming this week both to see what our students do in their free time and to see if we could find ways to use gaming in the classroom. I looked at Second Life, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Minecraft, and Omegle (which I thought was bizarre and totally inappropriate for children because of safety concerns). All of these games were unfamiliar to me except for Minecraft, which my daughter plays. I have to admit that I have a huge dislike for anything set in a high fantasy world, and any gaming that involves violence doesn't appeal to me at all. Second Life, World of Warcraft, and League of Nations can teach problem solving and digital citizenship, and some teachers have used them for teaching about science or social studies. For example, NASA has a Second Life site here. However, these topics can be taught in other ways that eliminate all of the extraneous elements, especially violence.

Minecraft is the only game that I thought could have educational applications. In creative mode, I think it's an excellent tool to let children cultivate their imagination, and it also reinforces spatial relations skills. I interviewed my 12 year old daughter, L., about Minecraft. She loves that she be creative as she builds structures and that she can hook on to her friend's structures. Lately she's built bedrooms for two friends in her house, and has been putting art on the walls. L. focuses in when she plays, instead of multi-tasking like she might do for Instagram. She's not addicted; she probably plays it an hour a week. For virtual reality games, she likes Sims better.

L. does think that Minecraft could be used educationally. She says it's good for geometry and 3D figures, and she thinks kids could use it in the classroom. Teachers could create destinations for the students to visit (which sounds like a lot of work to me!), and make connections with history. I tend to think it's good for kids, but is a better idea for a club or after school program.