coMité dE dirEctorES

Any school which utilises social media has to think carefully about the advantages and disadvantages of doing so. Schools need to be absolutely sure that teachers have the necessary skills to keep the children safe whilst posting their content. They also need to make the operating parameters clear to parents.

As specified in the methodology section, a pragmatic approach to research means that understanding what these advantages and disadvantages are is vitally important (especially if there are to be practical applications for schools). One of the objectives of this research was that the findings should be relevant and useful to the schools involved.

The table below outlines some of the comments made by the interviewed participants during the pilot study which illustrate this theme:

Table 1: Examples of pilot study transcript extracts – Weighing up the costs and benefits

Selected examples of significant statements

Significant statement Formulated meaning Theme/s Overarching Theme/s

“They (apps) can do anything from cover the ICT curriculum or just enhance other learning as a key skill, I.T. work really”.

M – p.1 lines 20-21

Technology has a very wide range of uses in the classroom.

(Benefit)

Curriculum Cost / Benefit

“It aids children with confidence who don’t want to be actually seen and it gives them that little bit of motivation”.

M – p.2 lines 3-4

Technology might be used to help introverted children. (Benefit)

Motivation Confidence Communication

Cost / Benefit

“We would be covering them all instead of doing some work”.

M – p.6 line 19

There isn’t time to manage everything at once. (Cost)

Time Cost / Benefit

“If you are in touch with other teachers in education, you get to know certain things I think you get fed….it’s certainly a way to keep in the know”

Social media is useful for continuing professional development. (Benefit) Knowledge Seek Information Give information Safety Purpose

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M – p.9 lines 6-8

“There were people on there (Facebook) doing comments about the teachers that weren’t very kind”

S – p.7 lines 16-17

Social media can be used in a negative way which is harmful. (Cost) Mis-use Risk Cost / Benefit Safety Purpose

“It’s not so much the children you don’t trust but it’s the people who are giving the things out on the internet and the companies that are setting these up. Because they have no conscience”

M – p.12 lines 15-17

External influences on children who use the internet can be negative (Cost)

Mis-use Risk

Cost / Benefit Safety

The teachers in the main phase of the research described some of the benefits of using social media with children to enhance the learning that is taking place in the classroom:

They are thinking about their learning and they are not just saying look at our writing...it’s just another way of embedding and reinforcing the language we use in school and also for them to showcase their learning really (N – p.7 lines 3-9).

This teacher elaborated on this further by thinking of specific curriculum examples:

Definitely links with literacy. I mean just writing a Tweet for example, you know, for X, the amount of times he said “is this right how do you spell this?”…they are unpicking what they are actually doing and the skill they are using…because if he’s Tweeting about Maths there’s discussion between him and the person he’s Tweeting about what they are doing, so they are reinforcing what they are doing, they are thinking about what they are doing (N – p.9 lines 3-10).

And staff often mentioned the way that technology seems to engage the children because of its interactive nature:

They don’t see it as actually learning, it’s a bit more engaging and they can become more independent, especially when they are researching (KD – p.1 lines 12-13).

They do use the i-Pads where there is a few of them, but they like to almost cwtch (cuddle) up with it (A – p.2 lines 8-9).

One of the teachers considered the impact of Twitter as a reward or confidence boost for some of the children in her class:

79 I think sometimes we can use Twitter as a “come on, if you do really good, or you

concentrate really hard and do a good piece of work we are going to Tweet you”, that

kind of thing. So it can be used as a positive reward that can sometimes encourage the children (A – p.9 lines 5-8).

She also described how one parent’s opinion on using Twitter in school was changed because her child wanted to be part of the school project:

He originally wasn’t allowed on Twitter, but she, her opinion on it completely turned around because she was able to see him do his learning while she was in work, but also for his confidence (N – p.3 lines 8-10).

For the child she had been describing above, it was clear that, from the teacher’s professional perspective, using Twitter had a positive impact on his individual motivation:

Definitely motivation, even when X used it initially lots of children were saying “if I do

this can you Tweet me?”. So there was motivation to complete a task so that he could

Tweet it and share it with mum, dad or whoever (N – p.5 lines 15-17). One parent mentioned how her son had felt about taking part in the project:

He was happy to be chosen, he felt like it was a special thing that he had to do and that all his friends could take part in…he did like that level of responsibility (S – p.6 lines 2-5).

And she thought that there were clear benefits in helping her understand what her son was doing in the project:

He was telling me “do you know what hashtag means?” so that was really nice. The fact that he knew something that I didn’t know how to do was good (S – p.6 lines 10- 12).

However, in order for any whole school project to be considered effective, members of the school senior management team have to be able to identify more benefits than costs. One of the issues raised by one member of the senior management team was the time that staff might have available to continue running a project such as this in the future:

I need to consider the staff impact on their time and the time that they’ve got to put in to make these things happen (R – p. 11 lines 6-8).

This participant also stated that the technology the children were using to post their Tweets (i- pads) was not necessarily engaging for some pupils:

80 We have a catchment where probably 60-70% of our children have an i-Pad at home, it’s nothing new to them. They find our i-Pads quite boring because they don’t have the latest FIFA (football game) on them! I think what the i-Pad has become is common, it’s like a calculator, it’s like a Pritt-stick, it’s just seen as a tool that doesn’t excite….it hasn’t got the same impact as it had five years ago (R – p.2 lines 9-14).

One benefit that was identified was that Twitter can be a quick method of communication:

It’s so easy, it takes five seconds to Tweet and even if you did it when the children have left to go to lunch and taken the photo during the learning, it’s not hours out of your day, whereas communicating with parents can take a long, long time. So it’s a quick fix if you like (N – p.10 lines 3-6).

Another member of the senior management team interviewed, felt at first, that she was unable to see how Twitter could be of any benefit to either the children or to the school:

I was really cynical…I was quite negative, thinking ‘oh’ I could not see any benefits at all (J – p. 1 lines 12-18).

But then later described how quickly she became an advocate for the social media platform:

Within about two weeks I think I was the biggest user, the most prolific user (laughs) (J – p.2 line 1).

When looking at the costs of the main phase of the research, it seemed that Twitter could have the potential to distract some students from completing a task:

The only thing I did find is that it then actually took away from his learning because he was focusing so much on the Tweeting he then, it wasn’t just a two minute thing, he would be trying to get different photo angles and shots and things and then other children would get involved (K – p.4 lines 16-20).

But, on balance, it appeared that these initial uncertainties were significantly outweighed by the way that the children were able to get directly involved and take control. The staff liked having the children play a much more central role in the process and seemed to imply that this may be empowering for them:

I know it’s been really helpful for some of the teachers even…because that child has taken on a responsibility of Tweeting in the class…that’s great sometimes, because if you know, it’s the child’s responsibility (A – p.8 lines 10-13).

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