All posts by Thomas

Facebook as a community builder

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Media and Technology Critiques, Urban Adolescents

I think social media networks, such as Facebook, have great potential as learning tools for adolescents. Facebook, though not as popular with adolescents as it once was, provides students with many opportunities for expression and interaction in a way that can be monitored by the teacher and other students. It can be used as a great tool that promotes engagement, collaboration, and a sense of community.

Social media has played a tremendous role in both perpetuating injustices and fighting them. The success and/or survival of many social and political movements has been due, in great part, to organizing on social media such as Facebook. Students, with the guidance of teachers, can also use this platform to explore societal issues that are of personal interest to them and create awareness about topics they care about, including promoting social justice. Ideally this would motivate them to interact more and create a space where they could form respectful relationships in a cooperative, supportive environment that values differences.

While there are many dangers and negative aspects of this site, they can easily be greatly diminished with the proper administration and oversight. For example, teachers can design a class site and set it as private, ensuring the safety of the students from possible predators, and put rules and guidelines in place for students to follow. The teacher can monitor what is being said and work to create a safe, healthy culture within the confines of their private page where bullying and disrespectful behavior would not be tolerated.

A very positive and useful aspect of Facebook is that it is very easy to post many different media formats on there, which, in my opinion, gives it an advantage over other social media sites.  It is very user friendly for teachers and students who can post videos, articles, and music which they can comment on and create discussions about. It is a place where the class can share information and interact with it and the other students in deep, meaningful ways.

Another really good aspect of this site, and others like it, is that many adolescents who might feel insecure about speaking in class would likely feel less timid online and be more inclined to share their true feelings and ideas due to the online format. This could in turn instill more confidence in them and inspire them to be more active in the classroom. For that reason and others, these sites are particularly useful for second language learners because they give them the chance to practice the language in a safe, non-threatening manner which can serve as practice for the classroom and give them more of an opportunity to become more active members of their learning community and the larger society. Because the language is written, the teacher would have many opportunities to identify strengths, interests, and problem areas to work on. Similarly, students who are hesitant to share in class because of an image they are trying to uphold or a role they are pursuing, could be afforded the opportunity to explore different kinds of roles and different aspects of their personality. I think many students feel more freedom to express themselves online than they do in the classroom.

Adolescents generally love to communicate in this format. So, if they are motivated and engaged with the format and material on the site, there are many possibilities for the teacher to help them learn how to be respectful, contributing members of a respectful community; a skill they can surely transfer out into “the real world”.

A big drawback could be if a student didn’t have access to a computer because of socioeconomic reasons. This would be terrible because it would serve to perpetuate the social injustice by marginalizing the student more because of their disadvantage. In order to prevent this from happening, the teacher must ensure that all students are able to participate by providing ways to contribute in the case that the students lacked the necessary tools. For example, one way to accomplish this would be for the teacher to give them access to school computers during the day or after school.

Regardless of the personal opinions and preferences of teachers, technology is here to stay, and students love to interact with it. It is our job as teachers to integrate it in beneficial ways that contribute to students’ learning and growth and, as a result, to societies’ well being.

Shared triumphs.

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Urban Adolescents

“I call this new kind of narrative experience metaphysical transcendence because it possesses an agentive dimension, which allows Black women to fashion stories less from a posture of shared tragedies than from  place of lived triumphs. The following poem written by Maya an posted on her blog, is an example of this:

note to self:

you are not alone and

i

love

you.

always,

yourself”

Kirkland.

There were so many powerful passages to choose from in this article, but I chose this one because, like the article, it focuses on the positive solutions that many Black women have been engaged in on and offline that consist of focusing on the triumphs over their SHARED struggles while providing empowering models and examples for other women. Though the internet has continued many negative practices, such as objectifying women, it has also provided a space for voices to be heard that often had no outlet before, and has provided them with a way to unify, to heal and  become stronger, and  to inform the rest of the world of the injustices that they have endured and continue to suffer.

Apart from this being a healing, empowering vehicle for Black women in their community, I think that it’s a fantastic way for others, who might not have had the opportunity otherwise, to connect to the authentic experience of Black females and ideally learn, benefit from their experiences and become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

 

 

 

Room to grow.

Socioemotional and Psychological Development in Adolescence

“Rather than try to suppress the changes and contradictions that your students play out every day, you can attempt to work with them. School then becomes their place to practice new ways, which can grow, with time and encouragement, into new attitudes and habits” from “Everything is Off Balance.”

I love this quote. What I take from it is that as a teacher I need to be patient with the students and allow them to experiment with their identity, but also provide them with other possibilities that they can choose from. Because they are experimenting with their identity it is up to teachers to expose them to other possibilities that they might not gravitate towards. We can do this by being tolerant and understanding of adolescents and by being passionate about our subject material and work so that students  can explore it with an open mind. Unfortunately, this is not easily achieved. Negative peer pressure is vey powerful, which is why it is important to create a healthy, safe classroom environment based on trust, respect and openness, among other things, so that students feel as comfortable as possible exploring.  Though it is important to be patient, there must be rules and boundaries in order for it to be a safe learning place where students can express themselves freely.

 

 

Adolescent matters.

Biological & Cognitive Development in Adolescence

“When a seventh grader doesn’t understand something, he or she can suddenly think about not understanding. Such thinking may not lead to understanding and may in fact lead to frustration. Indeed, many of the frustrations middle school students experience may result from this new reflective thought–this thinking about thinking. They may even worry about why they are thinking about their thinking.” Browne, D., & Knowles, T.

Reading this passage made me laugh at loud and brought me back, if only a little, to my adolescence. While I certainly worried before adolescence, it seemed to go into to overdrive during this time. They were definitely difficult times, but also very fun. As the article suggests, this very turbulent time is very important in youths’ development. I thought it was very important that the article mentioned that teachers need to remain calm and professional in the face of adolescents’ erratic behavior. I know that many of my teachers didn’t act in this way and it only caused harm for many. In this period, when many youths are forming their identity, it is very easy to leave indelible impressions. That is why it is of the utmost importance that we as teachers carefully guide, inform and support students the best we can by using all the knowledge and tools available to us to ensure that they have a chance to come through this stage to the best of their abilities.

Insights on adolescence.

Urban Adolescents

“Our primary goal of understanding adolescence as a developmental period in its own right should come with a complementary goal of connecting insights about adolescence and its developmental processes to other life periods. These dual goals serve both our understanding of adolescence itself as well as the life course more generally.”

As a prospective teacher of adolescents, this quote is very important to me. Understanding the complicated developmental period of adolescence is crucial if I want to reach and support students in their learning and development as human beings. While this period can be looked at on its own, failing to consider the past would limit my scope and understanding of my students thereby limiting my ability to serve them. The same is true for the future. Understanding the students and their development, past, present and future, can help me tailor my instruction according to their personal needs. Also critical is the need to be aware of what it means to be an adolescent today, which has changed drastically in the last couple of decades. Once again, by being more aware of the reality that students face, I will be in a much better position to understand, support and teach them according to their personal needs.