Social Media in Vocational Education and Training

(Graphic from Social Networking - socialmediamomcom)

One of the most compelling reasons to explore the use of social media in vocational training is to engage our learners.  Social media is ubiquitous, particularly but not exclusively among the young.  How many people do most of their learning via links in social media?  I know I do a lot!  However what is the quality of this learning?  We  need to be proactive in directing our learners to valid and useful resources while they are in our learning environment, so that they don't waste time and energy on dodgy or out of date information.

Another reason, that is allied to engagement, is that it is a major  means of communication in contemporary society.  Since education and training is largely about communication, this is a valuable tool that we can use to communicate with our learners and for them to communicate and collaborate for learning.

So what are the pro's and cons of using social media in your teaching?

Here is an infographic that sets out some of the main social media or social networking sites and some of the recent findings on what is working and what is a problem:

Pros and Cons Infographic

Precautions

Here are some of my thoughts on precautions when using social media/networking::

Facebook is the first site we think of when social media/networking is mentioned. For many people it's their primary means of communicating and learning.  For this reason it has great advantages for us to use as teachers, particularly with the young.  However the privacy and security issues are huge and complex in an educational environment where you have duty of care, particularly with young people. The main precautions are fairly simple and really apply to any social media site:

• It is easier to protect everyone's privacy using a group rather than a page.  You can set up a group so that it is closed and can be accessed by invitation only. You can even make it "secret" so that it can't even be seen at all by anyone on Facebook apart from those who you have added.  

• When setting up a group you should use a unique identity that is different to your normal personal profile on Facebook, if you have one.  It can be a special profile that is for teaching or professional purposes - you as a teacher/trainer, if you like.  This is easy to do using a generic email through Google Mail or Yahoo or similar. 

• You need to conduct at least one training session for your participants on how to handle privacy and security on Facebook, and the type of behaviour you expect from them on line.  You could advise them to set up their own web email for the purpose of the group, if they do not wish anyone to have access to their normal Facebook page.  They should also know how to set their own Facebook page to a level of privacy and security with which they feel comfortable.

• When posting images, video or other files, there are opportunities on upload to set privacy to what is appropriate.  People should be taught how to ensure anything they upload is only visible to people in the group.

Examples of social media/networking sites

Facebook - the one most of us use of course.

Google+  (Google+ has some advantages for teachers in that it allows you to create "circles" of contacts and people in one circle can't see what people in the other circles are posting.  Again, privacy settings need to be set right and monitored.

Pinterest - a social network site where images are shared - it is unique in that it allows you to "pin" images to category boards, and is a good way to share images and information found on the web.

Tumblr  - a microblogging and social network site that emphasizes image and creativity

Edmodo - a social networking page especially for education, that is very similar in look and feel to Facebook.  The advantage is that it is specifically for education and has good security and privacy provisions built in.  Using Edmodo would give your students a clear message that THIS social media work is about learning and not socializing in the www!

There are many other social media and networking sites that are around special interests or specific media, for example one that is around creating cartoons and animations but has networking built in is GoAnimate - it is a great site where your students can have fun creating simple animations for free then share them with peers - the educational possibilities are huge, especially where language, literacy and numeracy is an issue.

Share your thoughts!

What social media sites do you use?  Are you using social media in your teaching?  We would love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.