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issue 51 nov / dec 2014
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Literacy as Communication
issue 51 nov / dec 2014When it comes to new and social media in education, the bigidea is really …
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Learning Ethics with Social Media
issue 51 nov / dec 2014Can English Language teachers make use of social media toteach not just language skills …
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Affinity Space for the Youth
issue 51 nov / dec 2014People who share common interests are interacting,socializing and learning in online communities. Would such …
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Liberating Learning
issue 51 nov / dec 2014When social media is introduced in the classroom – do wesimply mean that teachers …
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Why Use Social Media?
issue 51 nov / dec 2014Social media are increasingly being designed into thecurriculum to make classroom learning more relevant …
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Bringing Literature to Life
issue 51 nov / dec 2014What better way to make Literature digestible for lowersecondary students than to use social …
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Using Social Media in Learning
issue 51 nov / dec 2014Contributed by Marshall Cavendish Education The rise ofsocial networking sites presents unique opportunities for …
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Welcome to the Online World
issue 51 nov / dec 2014Parents tend to worry that their children spend too much timeon online gaming and …
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Literacy as CommunicationWhen it comes to new and social media in education, the big idea is really about how theyshape and change our literacy practices. An NIE Research Scientist explains why.
What was life like before the Internet? During those days, anyone who could read and write would beconsidered literate.
“Now, it’s the screen that has central importance,” says Dr Phillip Towndrow, a Senior ResearchScientist from NIE. “The ‘reading’ of images and other graphics require new skills that take usbeyond what we used to know as literacy.”
“Literacy is now measured, in part, by how easily we can find the things we want on the Internet,” hecontinues. “But some people tend to get lost in navigating websites immediately!”
This calls for a different way of getting things done. “Not only do students need to learn how to readand write on the printed page, they also need to be able to read and create graphical representationsof knowledge.”
Literacy 2.0“The fact of the matter is that the outsideworld has changed so much, and the insideworld of the classroom has to reflect thatreality,” says Phil.
Children and today’s youth are exposed todifferent media. Most of the time, they are notonly consumers, but also producers ofcontent, especially on social media. They arenow “prosumers” who can publish content tothe masses by just hitting the “Enter” button.
“Their literacy experiences outside of schoolmay not always match what they learn inschool,” notes Phil.
To prepare students for life after graduation,schools will have to work on helping them learn how to communicate effectively across a range ofdifferent media, and not just with pen and paper.
Because of this belief, Phil thinks that in using new and social media for educational purposes, thebig – and ultimate – idea is literacy for communication that is fundamentally multimodal.
Designing a MessageCommunication now consists of different modes, such as written texts, images, movies andanimations, and students need to start thinking like designers or architects to effectively achieve theirdesired purposes.
“As a multimodal author, I have to bear many things in mind. It’s not just a question of having textsand graphics together like that,” says Phil. “It’s that when we pull these elements together, we haveto do so very purposefully and with specific meanings in mind.”
For example, a teacher may instruct a class to create a website with intuitive navigations. Or studentsmay be tasked to think about how they can give directions via social media to a friend who needs toget to a particular restaurant. Would they point their friend to an online map, or type out stepbystepinstructions on how to get there?
“Students need to learn how to put texts and images and other representations together in a certainway. It’s certainly not a random process,” explains Phil. “Design underpins what we see and how weexperience or understand the intended ‘message’.”
A Designer–author’s PerspectiveWhen students create content using new media, it is
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Students need to learn howto put texts and images andother representationstogether in a certain way.It’s certainly not a randomprocess.
– Phillip Towndrow onmultimodal literacy
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common for teachers to use certain rubrics to assessthem in media production from a technical point ofview, such as their animation skills or their use ofmusic and sound.
Seen in the light of multimodal communication, thestudents’ intentions as producers and the effects oftheir messages matter too. These aspects are“intangible, shapeless, personal and highly subjective,”says Phil.
Teachers can find out more by probing students withquestions such as: “What would you like your listenersto feel after hearing your story?” or “How do you feelafter writing this blog entry?”
“I think it’s important for learners to describe, explain and justify their work from a designer–author’sperspective when they are producing content for others,” Phil notes.
“The Real Me”Students often welcome the opportunity to use new or social media to create content for their peers.Perhaps they see such use of their literacy skills as being closer to what they enjoy doing in theirdaily lives.
“In my own research on the use of laptop computers in English Language learning, when I askstudents what their intention was and what story they were trying to tell, they’ll say, ‘I’ve a realopportunity to express myself and how I feel about something. This is the real me. This is my worldand I can express it in ways that are really personal to me.’”
This process of creation is not a oneway traffic, says Phil. “Using all these mediating technologiesand media changes who you are and the way you think. That’s what I’m interested in, that is, how theuse of such technology changes who we are as people and our literacy practices.”
There are many other questions that both educators and researchers are asking about the use ofnew and social media in the classroom.
Would students benefit from learning with such media? How? What can we do with new and socialmedia that we cannot do with other forms of communication? How do we encourage the participatoryspirit of such media and reconcile it with the established classroom culture at the same time?
Researchers like Phil who are searching for these answers have a busy time ahead of them. And ashe says, “Stay tuned!”
Phillip Towndrow is a Senior Research Scientist with the Education and CognitiveDevelopment Laboratory at NIE. His languageteaching career began in Northern Spainwhere he taught English in a private academy and then at the British Council in Bilbao. Amonghis many research interests are English Language pedagogy and practice, task design, newliteracy studies, multimodal analysis and the use of infocomm technology in education.
Bringing Second Life toGeography Lessons
The learning of physicalgeography has taken on a newdimension for students at Ang …
Literacy as Communication
When it comes to new and socialmedia in education, the big idea isreally …
Learning Ethics with SocialMedia
Can English Language teachersmake use of social media to teachnot just language skills …
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Learning Ethics with Social MediaCan English Language teachers make use of social media to teach not just language skillsbut also important lessons about ethics? Researchers from NIE certainly think so!
Csilla (second from right) and her team (from left: Suzanne Choo, Katy Kan, Hu Guangwei andPatrick Williams) find that social media can be used to inculcate ethics in learners.
Linking Literacy to Social MediaMedia literacy is now part of the English Language curriculum in Singapore. But the funny thing is,even though Dr Csilla Weninger and her research team found that visiting social network sites topsstudents’ media use outside the classroom, teachers refer to social media texts the least in theclassroom.
“Both teachers and students need to see the use of social media as an act of literacy,” Csilla notes.
To foster the kind of media literacy that is relevant to students’ daily lives, Csilla and her researchteam developed a framework with four components: functional, critical, ethical and aesthetic (Seebox story to find out more about the different components). In particular, the ethical part is somethingshe feels needs more attention in the English classroom.
“From the classroom observations we made, we saw a lot of the functional and critical componentsbeing taught,” shares Csilla. “However, the ethical or aesthetic aspects were barely touched on. Sowe wanted to develop something where the students are required to put themselves in someoneelse’s shoes.”
A Medialiteracy Framework
To help foster media literacy, Assistant Professor Csilla Weninger and her team developed aframework to be implemented in the English classroom.
“The first component is functional. You need to be able to read, write and create multimodalcontent to be a medialiterate person.
“The second is the critical component, which has to do with higher order thinking skills, suchas asking students how they infer meaning from a blog or an online Facebook post.
“When students are using social media, to what extent are they aware that their online actionshave consequences on people’s lives? This is the third component – the ethical part. It has todo with the participatory culture of social media and not only taking the perspective of others,but also to be able to act upon it.
“The last component is aesthetics. It looks at the aesthetics of media use and mediaproduction, which doesn’t always get taught. This could include elements of design orplayfulness in language, both when you produce something and when you consume media ortexts of a different nature.”
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Understanding the “Other”In a virtual world where people can hide behind a pseudonym, cases of cyberbullying are rampantamong youth.
The ethics component of the medialiteracy framework by Csilla’s team asks that studentsacknowledge and act upon the recognition of the perspective of the other, and take responsibility fortheir actions.
“If you develop this idea where you have to be able to look at things from a different perspective,then you’re working towards reducing instances of cyberbullying,” Csilla adds.
It may also help students avoid the trap of becoming more and more polarized in their views whenthey are online. Online discussions sometimes become heated because people care deeply aboutcertain issues, says Csilla.
It may not always be possible for everyone to come to an agreement. The key, she explains, is to“learn to live with and accept differences, which is only possible if you try to step into the shoes of theother”.
Creating PersonasCultivating students who care about others while simultaneously covering the English Languagesyllabus is definitely possible, says Csilla. While teachers usually focus on specific skills, for thisproject they decided to focus on a theme.
Csilla’s project team worked closely with English teachers from a school on the theme of SG50(Singapore 50). They developed an idea that groups of students would each represent a socialgroup in Singapore, such as foreign workers, National Servicemen and families with young children.
Keeping in mind that the English teachers have their own set goals, Csilla’s team used the theme tofoster students’ ethical perspective while developing their language skills as required by the syllabus.
For the project, students researched on their respective groups, and read materials such as a blogpublished by a taxi driver. This helps them understand the concerns and contributions of the group.
To weave in the skill of report writing, they were asked to write a report to their Member ofParliament about a problem their social group is facing. “It is really important that the studentsunderstand that the things they are learning have a real connection to their lives outside school,”Csilla emphasizes. “Literacy is a social practice. It’s not something you do in the classroom, examine,and then forget about.”
Csilla notes that in the end, the teachers were able to meet all their set goals. “That’s the wonderfulthing – it’s possible to meet all those requirements and everybody’s learning objectives, but have itdone in a way that’s more meaningful than just a unit on report writing!” she enthuses.
Moreover, she found out that it was not just the two teachers she worked with that used the materials—all the other teachers teaching the same level joined in because they thought it was interesting fortheir students.
Being Relevant versus Being IntrusiveCsilla suggests that teachers keepthemselves updated about socialmedia happenings and talk aboutthem in the classroom. “Things likethe ALS Ice Bucket Challenge –have discussions about them, askstudents for their reactions, andhow they participate in socialmedia,” she says.
However, she cautions that while itis important to establish relevanceand connections, teachers shouldbe careful not to intrude students’privacy to a life outside school.
“It’s a delicate balance,” she notes. “It’s important to prepare students for what they encounter onlineand empower them to be active media users. But it’s also critical that we leave them the social spacewhere they can enact agency and talk about issues they don’t want their teachers to talk about.”
Striking that balance is not easy, but Csilla believes that it is especially important for a holisticeducation.
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“Our students are human beings with emotions, and they have agency, desires and plans. Aseducators, we should pay attention to those other parts of our students as well, to develop them as awhole person. And this is where media literacy is important in this current age.”
Csilla Weninger is an Assistant Professor with the English Language and Literature AcademicGroup at NIE. Her research interests include critical discourse analysis, discourse, identity andideology, media literacy, and critical language awareness. She is the Principal Investigator forthe Office of Education Research project “Media Literacy in the Teaching of English inSingapore”.
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Affinity Space for the YouthPeople who share common interests are interacting, socializing and learning in onlinecommunities. Would such an “interestdriven” community work in a classroom too?
As a photographer, Dr Mingfong Jan finds his onlinelearning experience inspiring and revealing. He is amember of several online photography forums andcommunities such as those in Flickr, a popularwebsite where people share images and discussphotography.
There is evidence that engaged and deep learningoften takes place in such “affinity spaces” – spaceswhere people who share common interests gatheron their own accord and learn with each other.
Being the consummate education researcher that heis, Mingfong’s own experience in such communitiesgot him thinking: Might this concept take off in aclassroom too?
“There are many good lessons that we can learnfrom these online learning spaces. We see a culturewhere people critically consume and produce imageswhile they are socializing and having fun together.We want to investigate how such a learning modelcan be designed and enacted in schools,” saysMingfong, a Research Scientist from NIE.
Get Interested First, Learn LaterThere are at least two ways to learn photography, according to Mingfong. The first one is reading upon how a camera works and the technical aspects of photography, such as composition. This is acontentmastery model of learning.
The second, and more organic, way is to grab a camera and start taking photos. “You take photos,share them with other people, and take more photos. In this personally meaningful process, you buildyour relationship with images before the technical knowhows kicks in.” Learning photography isviewed as learning to express yourself through the world of light, colours, time and activities viacameras. This is a situatedlearning model.
Through the comments of others, budding photographers will gradually pick up technical knowhowsand skills essential for telling stories with images. They can also read photographyrelated books withmore understanding.
“You develop an interest in doing something and you will naturally feel the urge to know more aboutit,” explains Mingfong.
This is exactly the kind of learning culture that he and his team of researchers want to create in aclassroom. They worked with Professor Seah Hock Soon and Associate Professor Margaret Tanfrom Nanyang Technological University, and Art teachers to design an online social platform andauthoring tools for secondary students.
VisuaPedia, the online social platform and the authoring tool that they created, provides drawing,animation and other art production tools for students. They can also collaborate on art piecestogether. With the social platform integrated with authoring tools, students can view and comment oneach other’s works with a click.
To motivate students to participate, Mingfong “gamified” things a little so that they can earn pointsand badges if they complete certain activities, just like in an online game.
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A screencapture of Visuapedia, an online social platform and authoring tool for students.
Ownership of LearningFrom the teachers, the researchers got to know that many students feel obligated to create artpieces for teachers instead of for themselves.
“The teachers working with us shared similar beliefs. They really want to promote arts as a way toexpress, to communicate and create – a sense of ownership,” says Mingfong.
“What we want to do is for students to create and share art works and see this process as ameaningful and creative activity. When they develop a passion for it, they will become artists in theirown minds.”
Because of this, the teachers and researchers decided to step back and not impose common schoolrules on how students should use VisuaPedia. The teachers also refrained from posting andcommenting on the platform.
“We wanted to have a chance to understand how youth perceive the affordances of this onlinecommunity,” explains Mingfong.
“Facebook” in the ClassroomSo, how did the students take to VisuaPedia?
“Students were very interested in the drawing tools, and they also posted their artworks online fortheir classmates and themselves,” Mingfong says. The teachers found that their students took pridein their own creations. They were eager to share their own imagination.
But one thing that did not go as planned was the way students interacted with each other within theplatform. There was a lot of chatter going on initially, but most of the talk was “friendshipdriven”instead of on the art pieces.
“For the students, it was like, ‘Fantastic! Now we have a safe Facebook in the classroom!’ While theresearchers expected more conversations about their art works eventually, students zoomed in tothe social part of VisuaPedia,” explains Mingfong. “Perhaps socialization is a crucial part of talkingabout arts, at least that is what we found.”
Also, as students could access VisuaPedia via computers but not mobile devices, participationdwindled after a while as they, as digital natives, seemed to have little patience for asynchronousinteractions.
Teachers need to be very attentive and thoughtful about how they run thiscommunity and how students will see themselves in this community.
– Mingfong Jan on how teachers should approach online spaces
Lessons GainedFrom this experience of designing an affinity space within a classroom, Mingfong learned a fewvaluable lessons which he wants to share with those who want to do something similar.
“Don’t start from scratch,” he advises. Instead, look out for online platforms that are already freely
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available, and participate in it for a while. Get your hands dirty at being a community organizer first,as the role is quite different from that of a classroom teacher. From there, you can think of how tocustomize the space for your class.
Something else to think about is the learning culture you want to foster in that affinity space. Rulesand activity structures are still needed to maintain the community, but it should not just be anextension of the classroom to an online space if you are thinking about affinity space.
“In an online space, teacher shouldn’t be playing the same role as in the classroom,” says Mingfong.“They need to be very attentive and thoughtful about how they run this community and how studentswill see themselves in this community.”
Mingfong Jan is a Research Scientist at the Learning Sciences Lab at NIE and is interested inhow new media (e.g., Flickr, mobile phones and digital cameras) restructure thinking, values,actions, community and culture. He is the Principal Investigator for the Office of EducationResearch project “Visual Participatory Culture in and out of Singapore Schools”.
Bringing Second Life toGeography Lessons
The learning of physicalgeography has taken on a newdimension for students at Ang …
Literacy as Communication
When it comes to new and socialmedia in education, the big idea isreally …
Learning Ethics with SocialMedia
Can English Language teachersmake use of social media to teachnot just language skills …
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Liberating LearningWhen social media is introduced in the classroom – do we simply mean that teachersshould use it as a teaching tool? Not so, apparently!
Students’ Online UsageIt started out as a research study to understand how local youth use social media. The results cameas a surprise to researcher and socialmedia enthusiast Dr Victor Chen. Unlike American youth, ourlocal youth spend onethird of their time online for school work.
“In the US, students are friendshipdriven 70% of the time and interestdriven for 30% when they usesocial media,” Victor says. “But in Singapore, our study shows that our students are also schooldriven!”
Victors feels that it could be due to Ministry Of Education’s Masterplan 3, which encourage schools tointegrate the use of information technology into lessons.
Most students in his study used social media for coordination, information collection and collaborationfor projects. While many may feel that the results of Victor’s research study is a sign that we are onthe right track, he feels that we need to look deeper into how social media is really being used.
Learning versus Schooling
“There is a distinction betweenlearning and schooling,” Victor says.
“Learning is about thetransformation of children intolearners who are inquisitive to theunknown, whereas schooling isinstitutionalization of children intostudents who are confirmative to theknown.”
While the latter means studying acertain subject or topic based on apredefined set of rules and learningoutcomes, learning is a genericreference to acquiring knowledge –any knowledge with no boundaries.
And one of the best ways to learn isvia social media; it’s an open portal for knowledge seekers. The tricky part, however, only emergewhen a set of “rules” is introduced during the use of this platform.
Victor feels that the existence of “rules” will create a schooling culture, rather than a learning culture.This, in turn, creates students who are schooldriven when they use social media. To him, this dilutes
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the essence of social media.
To liberate learning is the ideology of social media. “It is about the democratization of learning,”Victor explains.
This simply means that students are given the liberty to choose what they like to learn and how theywish to learn it. “In the new media space, you can excel in photography if you want to,” he adds,“even if you are a 10yearold. There are no predefined rules.”
The online world offers users an array of opportunities and possibilities. But are we using it to its fullpotential?
Realizing the Potential of Social MediaImagine social media as a computer. In the early days when the computer was introduced in schools,it was used mostly as a reading tool. “They scan a book and put it on the computer so students canread on them,” Victor shares. “But there is no difference with reading on paper itself.”
It is only much later that people start to realize that they can also use the computer to connect withothers.
The same goes for social media – it is mostly used as a teaching or classroom management tool.However, Victor feels that social media has much more to offer.
“You can use, for example, Facebook, to share a project but that isn’t considered social mediabecause you are not using it in a ‘socialmedia’ way. Rather, it is used in a technological way, as atool.”
“The use of social media comes with free choice,” he explains further. “If students are not given thefree choice (to learn what they want), then we are missing the point.”
Democratizing LearningThe main thing teachers can do isto encourage creativity and criticalityamong the students, shares Victor.“Give them some direction andencourage them to spend sometime in that big space.”
Apart from the democratization oflearning, social media also put theusers in an “experimental space”where one can learn from mistakes.Victor feels that the online world is more forgiving compared to the real world. “You need the kind ofsafe environment and culture that allow students to make mistakes and experience theconsequences,” he says.
For example, an online social media user can close his or her account, create a new one, and have anew identity – something not possible in real life.
And it is in that very big, experimental space where students will have a chance to learn what theyare truly passionate about!
Victor Chen is an Associate Professor at the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning AcademicGroup. His research interests include new media learning and learning sciences. He is thePrincipal Investigator for the Office of Education Research project “New Media Literacy ofSchool Students in Singapore”.
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Learning Ethics with SocialMedia
Can English Language teachersmake use of social media to teachnot just language skills …
Affinity Space for the Youth
People who share commoninterests are interacting,socializing and learning in onlinecommunities. Would such …
Liberating Learning
When social media is introducedin the classroom – do we simplymean that teachers …
About Us
SingTeach is a quarterly emagazine for teachers. We put research withinyour reach in practical ways. A print version is also published by theNational Institute of Education and supported by Marshall CavendishEducation.
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Why Use Social Media?Social media are increasingly being designed into the curriculum to make classroomlearning more relevant for students. We talk to a few teachers who took the leap andincluded social media in their lessons.
After asking his History students to create a photo montage about the Cold War for a project, MrLloyd Yeo faced a question: Where should he showcase their projects so that the students canappreciate each other’s work?
The Lead Teacher from St. Gabriel’s Secondary School asked his students to upload their photomontages on Edmodo, a social learning network, where he had created a closed group for his class.There, his students can share, view and comment on each other’s work at their own convenience tohelp the creators improve the subsequent versions.
Lloyd points out that this is just one of the many ways social media come in handy in the classroom.
(From left) Chew Ee, Lloyd and Ezal believe that social media lend itself very well tolearning in the Humanities classroom.
Leveraging Technological AffordancesSocial media have many functions, and the ways they support teaching and learning are termed astechnological affordances.
To enhance his lessons, Lloyd uses the mobile app version of Edmodo. With the app, he can uploadresources and notes for students to access anytime, create discussion boards to engage them,create quizzes to check their understanding, and allow the students to post and share content.
Mr Chew Ee, a Senior Teacher from St. Andrew’s Secondary School, adds that social media notonly allow students discuss anywhere and anytime, but more importantly, they make their thinkingvisible.
“When you deliver the lesson, do you really know whether the students are paying attention?” ChewEe points out. ”Even if you ask them to contribute answers, only a few might put up their hands, andyou just don’t have the time to call out every single student.”
Furthermore, social media act as a cordon sanitaire, according to Lloyd. “It’s a closed, sanitizedenvironment for students to work in and share.”
For students, a safe environment is important. When they feel comfortable, they will not mindcontributing and the platform becomes conducive for their learning. In fact, Mr Ezal Sani, a SeniorTeacher from Fairfield Secondary School, notes that social media can give a voice to the voiceless.
“It’s interesting to see how students who are quieter in the classroom become more forthcomingonline,” Ezal adds. “We also have students who suddenly develop a keen interest in the subjectbecause they can explore it in a different manner!”
Planning for Social Media in the Classroom
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Introducing social media into the classroom requires planning for any challenges that mightarise. Mr Lloyd Yeo shares some points for consideration.
“Student safety and security is number one. Keep in mind that your activities are for students,so create a closed and safe environment for them so they would want to participate.
“Secondly, social media should not be used in isolation. In the curriculum design, they shouldbe an addon to enhance the class.
“Teacher presence is important. You can’t set up a socialmedia platform for the class and beabsent half the time. Feedback should be constantly given.
“Clarity of the purpose is important – be clear why you’re using social media. If you’re going touse it to assess discussion, tell the students on Day One that you’re assessing theirdiscussion.
“Finally, the choice of social media is important. Choose a platform that is appropriate becausesocial media are useful only as long as the teacher and student are comfortable!”
Developing Confident StudentsPart of education is grooming students to be confident individuals with a sense of selfworth, andsocial media lend itself to that.
Students who create outstanding content within closed groups can have their works uploaded onYouTube, where people outside of their school and even beyond Singapore can comment on.
“This motivates students to do well,” explains Lloyd. “When they know their work is good enough tobe shared, they feel that their work is being appreciated. So, their creation brings some level ofextrinsic rewards as well as intrinsic joy.”
Giving Social Media a TryLloyd believes teachers simplycannot ignore social media’sgrowing prominence.
By introducing social media intotheir classrooms, teachers also getthe opportunity to educate studentsabout their usage of such media.
“I get to socialize the students tohave the right etiquette and valueswhen they’re on social media,” hesays.
However, teachers might behesitant about incorporating technology in the classroom because of potential logistical hiccups.Chew Ee recalls with a laugh, “Forgotten password, spoilt screen, missing mouse…somethingalways goes wrong in the computer lab! But with smartphones, it’s now much easier and moreintuitive for both students and teachers.”
But it is not just the students who benefit from using social media. Ezal shares that because he getsfeedback directly from students in Edmodo, he tweaks his pedagogy accordingly. Edmodo thenbecomes a tool he uses for reflection.
While not all teachers are digital natives who take to social media easily, Ezal advises teachers not togive up. “When you invest your time in it, it’ll really be worthwhile.”
Lloyd Yeo is a lead Teacher at St. Gabriel’s Secondary School. He has been teaching for 19years. Ezal Bin Sani is a Senior Teacher at Fairfield Secondary School. He has been teachingfor 11 years. Chew Ee is a Senior Teacher at St. Andrew’s Secondary School. He has beenteaching for more than 13 years. They are all part of the Academy of Singapore TeachersLead TeacherSenior Teacher Network.
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Bringing Literature to LifeWhat better way to make Literature digestible for lower secondary students than to usesocial media? A group of 4 teachers from Nan Hua High School share how they keep theirstudents interested in the subject.
Learning and Having Fun“The acts of learning and having fun don’t have to be exclusive,” English Literature and Musicteacher Ms Chin Ying Fen says. “It is possible.”
She shares that bringing social media into the classroom helps engage her students and blurs theline between learning and fun.
“I also think knowing how to use social media is part of lifelong learning,” she adds. “It inculcates ahabit in the students to live their life engaging in educational activities via social media.”
With that mindset, she and a group of English Language and Literature teachers from Nan HuaHigh School worked together to use social media in their lessons.
(From left) Serene, Ying Fen, Kali and Tessa believe that knowing how to usesocial media is part of lifelong learning.
Bringing Characters to LifeFor 3 months, a group of Secondary 1 students lived out the lives of the main characters in theirLiterature text Red Sky in the Morning, albeit only on Edmodo, an educational social media platform.
The students posted status updates on Edmodo as those characters. “We gave them reflectivequestions,” Ying Fen says. “These questions were supposed to prompt their personal responses sothat they can take the perspectives of the characters.”
For example, a question for the book’s young protagonist Anna Peacock was: “Your baby brotherhas just been born. How do you feel?” And a question for Anna’s little sister Katy Peacock was:“Your parents are spending all their time taking care of Baby Ben. How do you feel?”
Students have to put themselves in the shoes of the characters before they could come up withrelevant status updates. This helps inculcate a deep sense of empathy in them. As the storyprogressed, their status updates had to reflect the change and growth of the characters.
Ms Tessa Khew, an English Language and Literature teacher, feels that Edmodo made her studentsmore enthusiastic and selfdirected during lessons. Her students also developed the ability to linktheir understanding of the fictional characters to their personal, realworld experiences.
To help them understand and remember literature terms better, the teachers also used AskNLearn,an educational social media platform where students blog (see box story).
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Blogging for Literature
Personification, metaphor, simile, symbolism: These are some common terms in Literature.Their definitions are not easy to memorize though, especially for Secondary 1 studentsstudying the subject for the first time. The team of teachers got their students to blog toremember them better.
“We have a project called the Picture Perfect Poetry Project,” Ying Fen says. “This projectintroduces students to literary devices when they first study Literature.”
Personification
Students imagine themselves as an object such as a dustbin. To personify themselves, theydescribe their feelings and thoughts as the said object through their writings.
Metaphor
After selecting a dish that best describes them as a person, the students have to createrelevant metaphors. For example, I have different parts of me that people see, just like theingredients in a salad.
Simile
Students pretended that they were selling perfumes and had to create a marketing script andtagline for their product. A perfume name called Swan, for example, could use this tagline: Asgraceful as a swan.
Symbolism
After picking a country, the students discussed what the different symbols on its flagrepresent. They were also encouraged to come up with their own interpretations.
“It gave them practice in using these literary devices,” Ying Fen says. “This was an attempt forus to make Literature fun for students.”
English Language and Literature teacher Mrs Serene Chong feels that blogging is a good wayfor her students to also practise their descriptivewriting skills. “I get them to write a post abouttheir holiday experience, for example, and remind them to use adjectives,” she says. “Theirposts must involve the five senses.”
Other than practising their writing skills, publishing posts gives students a sense of ownershipover their own blogs. Plus, they get to survey their friends’ work and learn from each other too.“Students are able to comment on each others’ work,” Tessa says. “Finally, teachers can alsoeasily collate all their work at the end of the day.”
Creating Opportunities for All
Confidence is key in the classroom.However, the teachers found that ina big class, the less extrovertedstudents tend to shy away fromvoicing out their opinions.
“They needed a lot of confidence toshare their own opinions and theywere not ready to do so,” Ms KaliSri, also an English Literature andLanguage teacher, says. Goingonline gives everyone theopportunity to openly share theiropinions and ideas.
Kali also builds confidence in her students by allowing them to take charge of their own learning. Theupper secondary classes created a closed Facebook group where they discussed their literaryopinions with their classmates. They also used this group as a platform for flipped classroom lessonswhere students read up on additional materials on issues and themes or watched video clips postedprior to poetry lessons.
“In class, you inevitably miss out on certain students who are quiet,” Ying Fen adds. “Social mediahelps teachers to reach out to everyone.” However, Serene advises that “the use of social mediamust also be purposeful and not just for the sake of using it!”
Tessa also feels that the online platform gives students the opportunity to exhibit certain talents,which they feel could not be showcased using pen and paper. While the latter may have worked for
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centuries, online learning definitely has its own benefits too!
Chin Ying Fen, Tessa Khew, Kali Sri and Serene Chong are teachers from the EnglishLanguage and Literature Department at Nan Hua High School.
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Using Social Media in LearningContributed by Marshall Cavendish Education
The rise of social networking sites presents unique opportunities for language education,especially when youth today are digital natives and prolific users of such multimodal socialnetworking sites.
Social networking sites have become very much part of our lives. A survey done in 2009 indicatedthat the most common internet activity among young people between 15 to 24 years of age was theuse of social networking sites. Our students are clearly into information and communicationtechnology (ICT) tools. It would be counterintuitive if educators do not use them to engage studentsin the classroom.
Teachers can and should creatively integrate ICT tools into their lessons to create a multimodalenvironment for their students. This can help nurture in them the key competencies and dispositionsneeded to succeed in our 21stcentury, technologydriven world. My team of English teachers at theSchool of Science and Technology, Singapore (SST) are exploring how this could be done.
Facebook for English Language Teaching
This year, the English department at SST started aclosed Facebook group for all Secondary 4 students toteach language use and critical thinking, encouragesocial constructivism, and allow both selfdirected andcollaborative learning across classes.
The teachers posted tips on grammar and vocabularyuse, discussed current affairs and language skills, anduploaded lesson materials in this Facebook group.
Central to the primary and secondary school EnglishLanguage curriculum is the ability to listen, read, view,speak and write a variety of text types or genres. Inaddition to print sources, the Ministry of Education (MOE)2010 English Syllabus incorporates a variety ofmultimodal nonprint sources such as webbased texts(which includes online articles, blogs, wikis), CDROMsand DVDs, analogue resources such as films, televisionand radio broadcasts. Facebook lends itself very well tothe incorporation of such multimodal sources and thepromotion of multiliteracies.
Facebook also helps prepare our students to be activecitizens in the future. There are plenty of opportunities for them to engage with politicians and various
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There are plenty ofopportunities for students toengage with politicians andvarious lobby groups withan online presence.
– Chin Meng on howFacebook prepares studentsto be active citizens in thefuture
lobby groups with an online presence. Students need a platform to learn the etiquette for suchengagement and to discern the information they receive online. A school Facebook group providesthe perfect environment for such learning, which is guided by educators.
Why Facebook?With so many social networking sites around, how did we arrive at the choice of Facebook? Severalstudies on the use of Facebook among university students have pointed to its potential use foreducational purposes.
Using naturally occurring exchanges on students’ Facebook pages, Selwyn (2009) noted how socialnetworking sites can be used educationally to support discussion between students and also forteacherlearner dialogue in the UK. Similarly, Bosch (2009) found in his study that students in SouthAfrica used Facebook for academic purposes to share ideas about projects and lecture or studynotes.
Facebook versus “Chalk and Talk”How does Facebook measure up to traditional ways of learning? For one, it makes a classroomborderless. Learning can now continue even after the school bell goes off. Compared to othereducational ICT tools such as blogs or PBworks, Facebook has a huge advantage. Almost allstudents have a Facebook account, and they already frequent Facebook for social reasons.
In Facebook, students are able to initiate discussions beyond the traditional classroom to includemultimodal materials such as videos, pictures, comic strips and links to other sites. They also thinkthey learn best from both text and videos, which is also observed by Cisco (2008).
Teachers can also share articles quickly and easily by just clicking on the Facebook button at thebottom of newspaper and magazine articles. Reading has been changed by how electronic text typesare organized to let readers choose their reading path. Most of the time, it will be nonlinear. Thespeed of such frequent updates and nonlinear reading are similar to what students usuallyencounter in their daily reading practices.
For the typical Asian learner, expressing one’s opinion on the Facebook group is definitely lessintimidating than articulating one’s view in a traditional classroom. Students who are more reservedcan now actively participate in the closed Facebook group by posting their comments.
ChallengesThe way students used Facebook did not always gothe way the teachers had envisioned. Theirparticipation was limited to commenting on teachers’posts. It was difficult to get them to initiate a newdiscussion of their own.
We were not able to accurately measure the kind andamount of learning that takes place on Facebook. It isstill unclear how it will translate into reallife outcomesand penandpaper assessment.
To overcome the above, my team is exploring severalideas, such as organizing competitions to enticestudents to post and developing a team of student writers under the school’s Talent DevelopmentProgramme to become active contributors. The team has also surveyed the students to obtainfeedback on how we can improve the Facebook group.
Facebook was created primarily for social purposes, and it presents information in a chronologicalfashion. As a pedagogical tool, this is a limitation as it is difficult for users to search for discussiontopics or use the group for revision purposes. This, however, can be overcome by syncing theFacebook group with a blog for topic tagging.
Now that they have gotten the hang of using Facebook as a learning tool, my team hopes to explorecollaboration across schools, both locally and with partner schools in other countries. Languagelearning is not strictly bound by the syllabus or traditional methods, so there are certainly morepossibilities in harnessing social media for educational purposes.
ReferencesBosch, T. E. (2009). Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at theUniversity of Cape Town. South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research 35(2),185–200.
Cisco, Global Lead Education. (2008). Multimodal learning through media: What the research says.Retrieved from http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/MultimodalLearningThroughMedia.pdf
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Selwyn, N. (2009). Faceworking: Exploring students’ educationrelated use of Facebook. Learning,Media and Technology, 34(2), 157–174.
Chin Meng is the Head of Department for English Language at the School of Science andTechnology, Singapore (SST). He is the winner of the Inspiring Teacher of English Award in2009 and the Associate of the Academy of Singapore Teachers Award in 2012. Chin Mengpresented a paper at the RELC International Conference in 2012 on the use of Facebook as atool for teaching and learning. His project also got into the finals of the Innergy (Schools)Award in 2012. Prior to joining SST, Chin Meng was the Head of the English Department atAnderson Junior College and taught General Paper. This article is contributed by MarshallCavendish Education.
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About Us
SingTeach is a quarterly emagazine for teachers. We put research withinyour reach in practical ways. A print version is also published by theNational Institute of Education and supported by Marshall CavendishEducation.
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Welcome to the Online WorldParents tend to worry that their children spend too much time on online gaming and theInternet. An NIE researcher cum onlinegaming enthusiast tells us that the online world isnot all bad.
The world of online gaming and new media has always intrigued researcher and Associate ProfessorAngeline Khoo. To her, the online world can help develop certain life skills in individuals, but only ifthey are used correctly and in moderation. We talk to Angeline about her views on online gamingand how parents can better understand their children’s involvement in this form of new media.
Q: How did you becoming involved in online gaming?I was involved in a gaming project which I enjoyedvery much. I realized that to be authentic, I had tobe a gamer myself, and help parents who do notunderstand online gaming actually understand theirchildren better.
My gaming experiences are rather outdated now,but what I have learned about the virtualenvironment still has relevance for those parentswho are rarely in the online world.
I think one of the reasons why I found this project someaningful was because we could help foster bettercommunication between parents and their children.The lack of understanding regarding the nature ofonline gaming can cause them to drift further apart.Parents are afraid of their children becomingaddicted and try to remedy the situation but imposing restrictions but in doing so, they can makethings worse. And this can be quite heartwrenching.
Many parents didn’t know that they have to understand their kids’ attraction to games first – whatmotivates them to keep on playing, what benefits they derive and what challenges they face.
Q: What is it that parents need to understand?We find parents lagging way behind in terms of their experience and understanding of these issuesbut that’s not surprising. The gap is even wider now because of new technology. Some parents maybe on social media but they may not understand how children are using it.
Take for example the definition of privacy. You ask teenagers if they believe in privacy and they’ll sayyes, they do believe in privacy of information. But when you ask them for the definition of privacy, it’sdifferent from what the adults think. For adults, it means not sharing information with strangers. Forteens, it means you don’t share information with your parents!
Q: What can teachers and parents do in this kind of situation?Teachers and parents need better understanding of the online world in order to communicate withchildren, and with each other.
Some counsellors we interviewed found that generally, parents are not sure what to do about thegaming habits of their children.
For example, a father may believe that switching off the computer would solve the problem ofexcessive gaming, so he may say, “I’ve given you sufficient warning. If you’re still online after I countto 3, I’ll just pull out the plug!” So he pulls the plug while his son is in the middle of a game, or havinga discussion with his friends. Of course, the boy will get very angry. In fact, some children may reactviolently. It’s not that they don’t respect their parents. They do, but at that moment, it’s an impulsiveresponse.
I think what teachers can do is to help parents understand these issues. And of course teachersmust understand these issues themselves if they are to be a bridge between children and theirparents.
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Parents need to understandwhat the game means totheir children, and teacherscan play a role incommunicating this toparents.
– Angeline on the role ofteachers
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I think one of the reasons why I found this project so meaningful was becausewe could help foster better communication between parents and theirchildren.
– Angeline Khoo, Psychological Studies Academic Group
Q: What kind of advice can you give to teachers and parents whosestudents and children are addicted to online gaming?Parents shouldn’t try to stop their children from playing games. They must understand whatmotivates gamers, and what needs are being met through playing these games. I’m motivated toplay because I have enjoyable experiences in the game. There’s a lot of social interaction, and Imake new online friends. We may not meet face to face but the depth of our conversations show thatsuch friendships are not inferior to reallife friendships. Only our avatars meet, but our avatars havetaken on our identities. So if you think an avatar is just a pixelated character, you’re wrong!
Not many parents understand that and think games are bad and try to stop their children fromplaying. Of course kids will rebel because they cannot give up what they enjoy, like friendship,teamwork, and the thrill of defeating a challenging enemy. Yes, games fulfil their need for socialrelationships as well as sense of accomplishment. Adults can learn a lot from games too. They canput into practice their leadership, conflictmanagement and problemsolving skills.
Parents need to understand what the game means to their children and teachers can play a role incommunicating this to parents. Help the kids exercise selfcontrol. The key word is selfregulation. Ifyou impose too many rules, they are all very external controls. The kids do not have ownership of theproblem and will find it harder to take responsibility for their own actions.
Help them exercise selfregulation, own the problem,and solve the issues themselves. This is not easythough. It takes a lot of time, patience andperseverance. Parents need to build rapport with theirchildren because they will not want to listen to you ifyou do not have a warm relationship with them in thefirst place.
The first step is for the kids to acknowledge that theyhave compromised some aspects of their livesbecause of too much online gaming. And you musthave enough empathy before the children willacknowledge that their gaming habits are havingdetrimental effects on them.
There needs to be a relationship that fosters negotiation and communication and this is possible onlyif there is an understanding and empathy. It’s all about parenting as every child is different. A lotdepends on how much parents understand what works for their own kids.
Angeline Khoo is an Associate Professor with the Psychological Studies Academic Group atNIE. Her research interests include Internet risks, online identities, videogaming issues andcommunication and relationships. She will be leaving NIE after 25 years of service, to spendmore time with her husband and grandson.
Learning Ethics with SocialMedia
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Liberating Learning
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make use of social media to teachnot just language skills …
Affinity Space for the Youth
People who share commoninterests are interacting,socializing and learning in onlinecommunities. Would such …
mean that teachers …
About Us
SingTeach is a quarterly emagazine for teachers. We put research withinyour reach in practical ways. A print version is also published by theNational Institute of Education and supported by Marshall CavendishEducation.
