Social Media Tools

In our ICT elective yesterday we were discussing social media tools in education and the theory that underpins it. We firstly discussed the different types of social media tools we use for example email, facebook, twitter, skype, google docs etc and whether these were syncronous or asynchronous. Synchronous means that the response is instant for example skype or facebook chat. Within the classroom this could be used to share ideas with the teacher,other memebers of the class or to share videos and photographs. On the other hand asynchronous means that there is a delay in the response and so is not instantenous for example twitter, facebook and email. In the classroom this could be used to support collaborative learning and group work. There are endless possibilites when using social media tools within a school setting. It can give classes the opportunity to communicate with different schools within the UK and further afield. This would allow children to learn about other countries, their cultures and education systems and compare the similarities and differences to their own.


We then began to talk about communties of practice. Wenger(2006) believes that "Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". Communities of practice are found everywhere and anywhere. I believe that a class is a community of practice as the children are all working together to achieve the same outcome. Teachers also form a community of practice with community, learning and development officers and social workers in realtion to child welfare. This relates to a module I studied during first year called Working Together to Achieve Social Justice.


The people that form communities of practices all bring different personality traits to the group which aid the success of the community. 
This is shown by Belbin's 9 team roles(right).  
It was interesting to discuss these roles in our group 'iCan' and see which roles we all thought we would play. I felt that I would definatly be a team worker as I feel I am a good listener, I enjoy working co-operatively, I like to avoid friction and confrontation and I am an extremely indescisive person. Not all of us knew exactly which role we would take but I am positive that the more we work together throughout this elective, we will find out.


References
http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm