Last Friday I was privileged enough to be invited along to the ‘The Worst Kept Secret’ or ‘TWKS‘ guest lecture students on the English PGCE course at Goldsmiths College in the potentials of Social Media in the Classroom.
We sat down in a packed and rather stuffy classroom in the education block to hear Dowshan Humzah and Andrew Davis present to the assembled students regarding the pioneering work they have done with students at Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate school in Shadwell East London and the lessons they have drawn from this experience.
Vicki Obied, the PGCE course director was in hand to provide refreshments for the trainers and to encourage her motley cohort to take advantage of this cutting-edge training-which they all did-enthusiastically. I was impressed by the PGCE’s students’ inquisitiveness and enquiry regarding the possibilities of the techniques and technologies that were discussed. Even though-as one student admitted to me-’ It is just one more thing. We are so overwhelmed by the amount of information that we must take in and assimilate.’
The truth is that teachers are expected to move mountains and many will and more as NQTs and rookie teachers. Even though understanding of the pedagogical possibilities of Social Media and Digital Technology feels like a luxury it is anything but.
Of course teachers need to work out the bread and butter techniques of how to educate the young people in their care, but still these phenomena, the reality of the social web, and the ramifications it has for the young people coming through the education system, are something that we can’t not flag up to our educators, and that we have, as Vicki recognises, a responsibility to make sure that the new teachers coming through understand and are conversant with the possibilities they have for opening up learning for the new generation of ‘digital natives‘.
Andrew and Dowshan certainly hit a nerve with these trainee teachers as over half reported that the all too brief three hours that Goldsmiths could timetable for the course would be beneficial and that there was a demand for more insight on ‘monitoring, social gaming, privacy, inappropriate classroom use and safety’-to name a few.
Teachers, as it came through on the feedback, are crying out for specific lesson plans that can be delivered into classrooms, reflecting the true intensity of the PGCE, something that I can testify to having done it. One said ‘I don’t know anything near enough of the technology available.’
By and large these are young teachers are ostensibly ‘digital natives’-the same as their students-yet as one trainee teacher told us -she would not be happy to teach with Facebook due to its true nature as a data capture device. I pointed out to her that, ‘If you were unaware of this fact and you are a trainee teacher what hope have the young people in your care got of understanding the true implications of Social Media? Unless you take the time to educate them about the reality of the complex nature of this technology.’
I hope that the work that TWKS is beginning to carry out will in some way begin to make inroads into the dearth of provision that can help schools, young people and teachers make sense of this fast moving and often hard to fathom area of modern life. As Andrew and the TWKS web site points out a good knowledge of Digital and Social Media is effectively ‘what they don’t teach you at school‘. In fact these industries are expanding and dynamic and there are opportunities there for young people to go out and make a living with some understanding and a positive attitude. It is approaches like this that we so need in this straightened and difficult times.
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