Social Media as an Educational Tool beyond the Classroom

Lesson Plan from the year 2013 in the subject Pedagogy - Class Preparation General, grade: Elementary and High School, Arizona State University (IREX), course: International Leaders in Education Program, language: English, abstract: This Professional Development Module offers teachers possibilities to work with content beyond the school borders using Social Media, making students more proactive and aware of the importance of creating information and sharing it. Students have received a more proactive role in education, and the information they are exposed to do not come only from the school but also from the internet. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Blogs and many other tools which are available online take part on the lives of most students. Social Media has been accepted as a tool used inside and outside schools in order to facilitate the work of a teacher, making the content more meaningful, interactive and interesting to students. This is a new age for education and Social Media has presented itself as an ally in this process. The Module is divided into four sessions, being the last session the wrap-up activities and it will be developed in eight hours, in four days. The first part of the Module consists on an overview about why and how it is possible to use Social Media in education. The teachers will create a Facebook or Fakebook Profile (according to their preferences) on the following session and a Gmail account if they do not have one in order to work with their coworkers at first. On the third session participants are supposed to work with sites and blogs, being able to identify the most important features and possibilities to work with them with students. On the last session participants are supposed to design a lesson plan applying the knowledge acquired along the previous three sessions using Social Media. They are supposed to present their work comparing and sharing their ideas.