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Social Media can be an amazing tool, even for our youngest learners. Nelson Mandela stated: "Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world". The tools available to make transformative change in the educational world of today's children are amazing. When coming out of my education program in just 2005, I could have never imagined using a mobile technology device (iPad) as a foundational aspect of my first grade classroom. I would have laughed when imagining my young students creating digital artifacts ,such as movies, about their understandings and wonderings which they would then share with student's across the world through blogging and Twitter. I mean it's called Twitter. Who could have imagined?!? As educators we have to be life long learners. That is a term that I have used in many interviews. It is almost a required term to drop in today's hiring process. Technology is certainly a part of an educator's lifelong growth, and social media is a pivotal tool and instructional practice in today's classrooms. Students need to feel ownership of their learning, and sharing and collaborating are crucial skills in that process. Why wouldn't we utilize tools that make students authentic audience...the world!!
This fall as part of my final graduate school semester, I will be diving deeper into social media learning. My initial reaction is excitement to have a platform to learn more about social media as an instructional practice. I have blogged with my first grade students, connecting with classes in California. I have also used Twitter as a way for kids to share out their learning and seek answers to their questions. However, I only did both in a very basic, introductory way, so I feel the need to learn more effective and consistent ways to implement social media tools. I have also used Seesaw as a social media tool (we called it our classroom Instagram) so I do have some experience using social media tools. |

My expectation for this dive into the deep end of social media learning is to learn how to use social media to make a bigger impact in the educational world both for my future students and for myself. Blogging and sharing is a passion of mine and I truly want to improve so I can share my passions with more educators around the world. I am looking forward to a new educational learning journey this fall and I hope you see the impact I hope to create on this blog and beyond.