Find the connection
It takes a village to raise a child . In other words: when raising and teaching children, all people in the (immediate) environment of the child are involved. It is the entire community in which children live and learn. Parents are not alone, schools are not alone, students are not alone. Of course there is a common interest, dealing with social media is apparently difficult, but let us solve this together, enter into dialogue in search of connection, as Frank de Boer says during the 'blue ball ' campaign at Ajax: "Connection is ultimately cooperation" .
As can be read in the trend report of Kennisnet , social media have a lot to offer education. It offers access to knowledge, you can bring the world inside, helps to break down the walls of the school, connects with the experience of students. Jacqueline van der Loo already gave some nice practical examples of using new technologies in the classroom and the environment , or take David Pijpaert (Geography teacher at RSG Stad + Esch) who uses Twitter in his lesson.
Fear is often fueled by a lack of knowledge. If we can increase the knowl bulgaria phone number list edge of social media among teachers by taking them by the hand and showing them what is possible, then Cruijff may well be right: “You only see it when you understand it” . This was partly fueled by a small-scale study in Belgium, which showed that teachers who are not present on social media and half of the cases do not see the educational value of it. But of the teachers who are present on social media, 72% do see the educational value of it. This means that if the knowledge of social media increases, you will see more educational possibilities.
There is also a good role for the government to stimulate the use of social media, because an exam would only become really fun for students if the exam requirements for a foreign language were included: “Students can read an online newspaper article in a foreign language, respond to it via an e-mail or forum message; start a discussion on Twitter via hashtags and, in parallel, start a separate discussion in the target language on their Facebook account” .
Students also show what is possible with social media, such as 11-year-old Puck Meerburg who created the apps Tafeltrainer , Tafeltrainer+ , Tafeltrainer Junior and the Teylers Museum app, or the example of Thomas Suarez who became world famous for his two apps Bustin Jieber and Earth Fortune .
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Every school has a Puck or Thomas; give them the stage and use them to bridge the 'knowledge gap'. Because by increasing knowledge, you can remove fears. André Hazes once wrote it on a beer mat: "Give me your fear now, I'll give you hope in return" .
Let's get started today!
It is time for a positive wave, a spring in education in which we look for connections and how social media can help with this. If we then create a social media protocol, it will say: use your voice, make a contribution, be proud of your school, share school news, be honest, respect parents, teachers, students, think twice before you tweet, show courage, be open, use your relationships from your network and be an ambassador for your school! Let us mobilize and connect all the positive energy in the education field, then it will be a wonderful year with Spring in education .
Hereby I call upon all teachers, students, school leaders in the Netherlands to contribute to Spring in Education . Show what wonderful things you are doing, how you are seeking connection, how you use social media to build bridges, how you use social media to captivate students, how you learn from students; how you learn from parents; how you build bridges with parents.
NOTE: Thanks to all the people who contributed to this article in the various LinkedIn discussions