Student Post: Benefits of social media: Challenging the Stigma by Kelsey McFarland

I get it, you sit here and think to yourself, aren't we trying to get children to move away from social media? I was there too, in fact, it wasn't until very recently I started to reimagine the use of social media as an impactful tool in the classroom. A video published by Edutopia called "Social Media: Making Connections Through Twitter" showed us how important the use of technology is in relation to connections. The education field is an evolving wheel, as new information comes up the old fades out. This is why the use of social media works to the instructor's benefit. Michael Thorton discusses his experience with his classroom. They were experimenting with the 20-paper challenge, he thought it would be fun to post it online and the connections were forming by the minute. Some of the connections were made even cross country. The reason I bring this point up is because, when it comes to the level of education our children have in America, I know it's known that we are falling behind. Specifically, even more so after the Covid pandemic hit. Connections build wonder, connections build understanding, and connections build relationships in new ways of teaching which in turn benefits the development of the students.

I think of myself in these situations and how I almost felt hypocritical with the preconceived notion I had prior to watching the Video. I was like many of you, I did not support social media, but I am currently doing what Mr. Thorton did in this video. I follow a teacher support page on Facebook and every day there are hundreds of posts by teachers, professors or people like me contending future instructors who benefit from communicating ideas about lesson plans that worked really well for their students or did not work at all. Some ask questions about what they could do, some ask questions about how they can improve their lessons to be more relevant. The point I am making here is, try not to be so quick like I was at judging the picture without getting the context.

Also posted at https://sites.google.com/emich.edu/technology-in-the-classroom/home