Experts from the education field argued their case for the use of mobile phones and social media in the classroom, during a panel discussion at Africa Education Week, yesterday.
The discussion - themed "Is social media disruptive in the classroom?" - looked at current education trends from around the world, with panellists each arguing why they believe education cannot be separated from technology.
Positive disruption
Member of the ICT in Education Excellence Group, in the Scottish government, Jaye Richards-Hill, argued that social media is disruptive in the classroom. "But that's a good thing. The term disruptive needs to be contextualised in a positive way."
She added there has always been a resistance to change in education. "We are living in a world that is going through another revolution. We had the agricultural revolution in the 18th century, the industrial revolution in the 19th century, political revolutions in the 20th century, and now we are in the midst an education revolution and this can't bypass our classrooms.
Richards-Hill believes the best learning happens in groups and social media enables the collaboration. "When kids go to school we expect them to power-down. Why must they stop communicating and collaborating just because they happen to be confined in the four walls of a classroom?
"People are engaged when they are learning about things they can relate to, or that are relevant to them, and social media is highly culturally relevant. Harnessing these tools for education could develop really powerful context for learning," she noted.
Richards-Hill said young people today do not look in books for answers on how to do things if they are given the choice. "They go to YouTube and they watch somebody actually doing it and then they are able to communicate and leave comments."
Proactive approach
Senior research scientist at the CSIR Meraka Institute, Adele Botha, built on this argument, adding that technology has disrupted relationships that normally exist. "And that's okay. What's not okay is to do new things in old ways or even worse, old things in new ways."
She added that the ability to participate in multiple spaces is now in anyone's pocket. "The mobile phone is the fastest spreading user interaction technology. Over six billion people worldwide are subscribed, which means 75% of the world have access and in South Africa we have 100% access."
Botha said people were told how to work with books and the same rule applies to social media and the Web. "We are opening the entire world to children and we are telling them that we will not supervise them there because we don't want them there. But guess what? They are already there. And no one is helping them to navigate the space."
She added that the absence of parents/educators in this sphere allows students to make the rules. "Instead of being reactive, we need to be proactive. Educators need to be where they are needed - online. Social rules need to be laid down in the classroom."
SA falling behind
Federation of Governing Bodies of SA Schools CEO Paul Colditz agreed that not enough is being done by school body governors. "We need to learn more and understand how to deal with the changes and how to handle the changes.
"Technology is not going to go away and it will be disruptive to education and it will be disruptive in the classroom but only if you won't accept the change that is taking place," he said.
Colditz also pointed out there was a call made last year to ban cellphones at schools.
"The interesting thing is that if you go to other countries, they don't have a problem with technology or social media." He added that the difference between those countries, particularly Scandinavian countries, and SA is that local educators have not taken the responsibility to teach students to behave responsibly with regard to social media.
Share