Google + and FacebookYAY! Now this is something that I think I am MUCH more familiar with!! Being the IT teacher, I am not only in charge of the Facebook page for the school but I also have an Instagram account for the school as well as Twitter! In saying this, it does not mean I'm an expert because there are many things that I don't know! I am excited to extend my knowledge of Social Media and actually search for things rather than just post all the time! This post will be divided into 2 sections. The first being about how I am getting information to come to me by following people and groups and the second section will be about how I use social media to find information. I am going to focus on one of my initial questions around gaining ideas on how to make Maths a more inquiry based subject as this is something I lack confidence in and find difficult - I think it will be a great opportunity to use Social Media to try and find some great ideas. The two platforms I am going to investigate are Google + and Facebook. The reason for this is because I use Google + a lot at the school I am working at. We are a Google Classroom based school and everything we do is based around Google Classroom. We are also big in using Google Cultural Institute, which is an unbelievable resource for our Art and History teachers out there - we absolutely love it at our school and we can use it in so many domains! More information on this website will be in my Social Curation. I decided to use Facebook as I am very familiar with it and also look after the school Facebook page. I am not big into the 'status updates' on my personal page however I do enjoy linking my photos to my Instagram site, connecting with overseas friends via private messaging and also reading many news articles people post. I have never tried to find information on it before so that will be a new experience for me. Section 1 - Getting Information to come to meThe way that I have chosen to do this is through my Google + profile. One thing I love about Google Communities is the way that it alerts you of new posts that people make on the pages. I find it really easy to navigate and the fact that they come as alerts on your email is also a bonus as you can simply click on the response and access your community from anywhere! I started with trying to find groups I can follow simply based around Inquiry Learning. A great function in Google + is the "Explore" option where you can type in exactly what you are looking for and it will produce as many results as it can find. Image accessed from Google +. Screen shot created by Author. The image above shows what happens when you type in what you are looking for. Google + predicts what you are searching and gives you a range of possible results. What is really good with this search is that it shows what type of resource it is, similar to ProQuest. For example, as you can see above, there is a mixture of Collections, Communities and Profiles. Collections - These are how many people curate their information. For example a Collection of 'Travel Photography' there is a whole range of resources that help people who are interested in taking photos of nature, landmarks and different cultural occasions. Communities - These are places for people to post articles and chat about certain topics. For example in the Community of 'Cooking' people post good recipes and discuss certain cooking terms and questions. Profiles - These are profiles of people who you can follow if their profile is public, but often if their profile is private you need to ask to follow them. Google picks up their profile if they have commented on the topic you are looking for. People & Places - These are a collection of people who have either commented in the topic you are interested in or have posted an article. Often these 'People' have a variety of resources that have an eclectic profile of different topics you might be interested in. It also picks up places around the world that may prove to be helpful with what you are looking for. For example if you type in 'Australia' many cities, cafes, shops etc have their own page dedicated to that area of Australia you are looking for, or Australian places in general. Next Step: I used Google + 's examples of communities and collections that I may be interested in and explored this more carefully by clicking on each one Image accessed from Google +. Screen shot created by Author. The above image is an example of one of the communities I clicked on - 'Inquiry Based Learning in Mathematics' which is very helpful and exactly the type of resource I am looking for. When you click on a community there are a variety of features. It tells you:
There were a few very helpful resources on this community which I will be sure to add to my curation. I especially love the new books that are advertised as well as people's curations of their own work Next step: Search some of the Collections Image Accessed from Google +. Screen shot created by Author The above image shows a 'Collection' that was suggested for me when I typed in Inquiry Learning into my search - 'Project and Inquiry Based Learning'. The set out of this search is similar to the 'Community' section however there are a few changes.
Whilst this collection has a few useful resources, the author's last post was 6 weeks ago and there are only 4 followers. I will keep an eye on this collection but this is an example of a collection that perhaps isn't up there with the best. Next step: If you don't click on the suggestions that pop up based around predictions, what does the search overview look like? Image accessed from Google +. Screen Shot created by Author The above image is the overview Google + provides you after you type in the search bar what you are looking for. As you can see, when I put in the search term 'Inquiry Learning' it gave a brief view of all the Collections, Communities and People & Places that match my search. It also shows you which Collections you are already following and what communities you are already a member of. If you click on 'More' it will give you many more resources under each heading. Next Step: How does it show you which communities you are a member of and which collections and people you follow? Image Accessed from Google +. Screen shot created by Author The above image shows you an overview of the different communities I am a member of. This is a great function as it is clear and allows you to see all of your communities on one page rather than scrolling forever. The little green dot on each community tells me exactly how many posts that I have not read or seen yet. Next Step: Does the Collection overview look the same? Imaged Accessed from Google +. Screen shot created by Author The above image gives you an example of how all the different Collections I follow are laid out. This layout is exactly the same as the other categories and pages I follow. What I love about Google is that everything is so colourful and colour coordinated based on different topics. It plays on your mind and makes it fun to search, as each category, community, collection and page are all different colours. Advantages & LimitationsAdvantages:
Limitations:
Section 2 - Finding Information - FacebookNow that I have set up my Google Communities and Google Collections to get information to come to me via people and pages I follow, it is now time to search for my own information using Social Media. I have chosen Facebook because I am familiar with Facebook as a social media networking site but never searched for academic references through it. I am well aware of how to search for people on Facebook but no idea what it produces in the way of academic resources! I decided to first start out with the basic 'Inquiry learning' search to see what Facebook has to offer. I then decided to use the Google Search of Site: as I had not explored that in my Google Search previously. Facebook also uses Hashtags I will be using them in my searches. From there I also wanted to base my search around my initial questions of Maths and IT in connection with Inquiry learning. You will see below the steps that I took and how the investigation took place.
Samples of Facebook SearchesSample 1. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 2. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 3. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 4. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 5. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 6. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 7. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author. Sample 8. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 9. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Sample 10. Accessed from Facebook. Screen shot created by Author Advantages & LimitationsAdvantages
Limitations
Reflection & Further QuestionsI was really impressed by the amount of information I found on Google + and Facebook. Due to my school being a Google + school and me being the new IT teacher starting in September (Term 3), I have only recently been exposed to the world of Google and I am extremely impressed. All the different functions Google offers within the domain of Education is fantastic and I will definitely include these in my Curation. What I love about Google + and its search function is that it is super easy to use. I am a bit of a sucker for bright colours and things that are colour coordinated and organised thoroughly as I am a bit of a perfectionist, so for me, Google + ticked all boxes. There weren't as many major groups that you could join such as universal International Baccalaureate group, but there were groups that linked to certain countries. When I did some extra 'on the side' research about Google +, I found that there are some huge groups that are operating, such as Apple which has 500,000 members, Inspiration Quotes has over 2 million members, Beautiful Pictures (which I am a member of) has the 3rd largest amount of members with 2.5 million and then the most active and populated group is YouTubers! with almost 5 million members. One of the elements which I really enjoy and it is similar to ProQuest's search, is the use of symbols to match the search type. For example in the predictive drop down menu, you can select if you are looking at Communities to join or Collections to follow. It is extremely user friendly as it is clear how you follow and unfollow each community, collection or person. What is also nice is that many people use pseudonyms so that they can have their Gmail account of personal emails and then a profile for posting and blogging which can be more private in terms of their name, photo etc. Another beneficial element is that you can turn notifications on and off for the communities you follow. I personally enjoy having them on because the alerts come straight to my phone and I can see when someone has posted something and I can read it on my phone. Some people might not like this element, but it is very easy and clearly outlined how to turn notifications off. Facebook offered some fantastic resources which I will definitely add to my Curation. I was pleasantly surprised at how many groups you can join that are full of teachers sharing ideas. Another element about Facebook I enjoyed is that many people can #hashtag their photos from the classroom or school and then it is easy to find and have a look at what other teachers and students are doing around the world. One potential limitation I can see though is that teachers can post photos of students on Facebook without the knowledge of the parents and students. There are usually very strict rules from the school about putting the faces of children on Facebook without permission, but it is very easy to do so without anyone knowing - hopefully all teachers have their morals and ethics high enough not to put a child's face without permission on a social media platform like Facebook! The only thing about Facebook that I didn't like was there were a few groups and pages that were negative. Obviously anyone can create a Facebook profile and become what they call a "Troll", but at least we have the ability to look past these pages and filter out what we do and don't want. There is also a HUGE amount of information because of the 1.71 billion users that use Facebook can potentially add anything they want. This is a limitation to Facebook searching as there is just so much information and there is no function to filter out all the 'bad' results. Due to researching and looking for information more directed at the concept of Inquiry Learning and specifically Maths and IT, there were a lot of different resources that came up that caused me to think of more questions. 1. Are there unit outlines or examples online of a really good tried and tested inquiry unit that can help teachers ease into the teaching go inquiry? Perhaps if they had help with their first term and a plan to go off this might be a far more positive experience than making teachers write their own inquiry unit when they are only just starting out. 2. I read one of the articles - What the Heck is Inquiry-based learning which talks about how Hamilton was so successful because it is a 'fresh and new' take on something we already know about. If this is the case for Inquiry Learning, how do we learn the techniques to do this in the classroom? How do you make learning about 'Space' on a deeper level, fun and different to what the other teachers have done in the past? 3. I found many posts dedicated to IB PYP programs. How do you become an IB school and how are the teachers trained to think Inquiry and 'do' inquiry? Do IB people come into the schools and teach how to think in an IB way or do teachers have to pick up the program and go with it?
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Miss Megan ElizabethAustralian living in Johannesburg, Primary School Teacher, IT Teacher, World traveller ArchivesColourful Light header image used with permission : (c) https://www.weebly.com
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The Yogi of Inquiry Learning and Re-search