Social Media in Education: 'share & like'

Dominic Graveson, Radovan Kranjc, Maja Vičič Krabonja, Urška Bučar, Marija Mustar, Simon Dražič and Amela Sambolić Beganović

This presentation will introduce you to the work we are doing within the DOM project where a group of teachers and consultants are developing and defining policies and best practice for use of social media across two areas: in the classroom and teaching, for schools and institute and in relation to safety policy and governance.

In the introductory part of the presentation we will discuss how we can define social media and its use in the field of education (DOM SP), and the potential benefits it can bring to relationships between teachers, students and wider communities.  We will also look at how many of our schools have taken the leap into using social media and the experiences they have had so far.

In the middle section we present the work of the DOM teams and outline the objectives and activities they are undertaking to define a set of standards for use and practice of social media in the classroom, institute and wider community for tangible outcomes.

We will present their thoughts and examples include examples and advice for operation of the institution or schools and the development of collaborative models of use of social media. The project is defined by key characteristics of openness, transparency, and accessibility of the public institution or school and aims to engage the communities within the  school, external stakeholders (parents' council, student community, ...) and to promote multi-directional communication and cooperation with users (parents, students, ...).

We will also present examples of the integration of social media at a cross-curricular level in order to:

• achieve greater reading and media literacy of pupils / students;
• promote critical and creative thinking;
• compare the effects of different learning and teaching approaches to teaching;
• engage users outside the school environment to increase access to the educational process

The final section will be devoted to questions and discussion of experience best practice.