Social media and class content – To include or not include… and how critical to be

As technology continuously evolves, it leads to the question: Should educators evolve and include social media content in their classrooms?

It seems like a simple question, but when we look at the ramifications, it becomes quite complex.

First, including social media is a great way to engage students in the material. I am a huge fan of using memes and humour in the classroom. It is a unique way to connect with students and build relationships. Students get to experience a little humour, they can see the teacher has an interest in teenage “culture”, and there is a common ground between the teacher and the students established.  Now, as much fun as this is, there needs to be a lot of thought put into the creation of said meme content. The original meme needs to be school appropriate. We police what slang students use because its original creator’s intent was not appropriate, or the slang (while sounding harmless) is not appropriate. For example, a lot of my students want to use saying like “hawk-tuah” or “gyat” in class. While they seem to be seemingly innocent, they have wildly different connotations today. “hawk-tuah” is a sexual reference from a viral video on Tik Tok, and “gyat” is referencing the size of a female’s butt. Teachers need to be aware of the origin of all memes before allowing them in the classroom, or else they could inadvertently support some rather unseeming content.

The same can be said for Youtube and TikTok videos. I have brought in both into my classroom. Sometimes it is nice to break up the monotony of hearing me speak. It is also nice to use the opinions from other “experts”, that I simply couldn’t convey. But again, we as teachers need to be critical of the media that we are bringing into the classroom. This involves researching the material of the video, the intent of the content creator, the possible stereotypes being implied, the potential for creating a trauma response in students, etc.  At the same time, we need to be critical of the material with our students. Every student comes from a household with their own experiences and beliefs. Sometimes, while the material is deemed appropriate, some families may take exception to its inclusion in the course material if it is the counter opinion to their own. Teachers need to be able to respond to all matter of opinions surrounding the material they bring in. For example, this year in Social Studies, I was teaching my students about government. Coming from Saskatchewan, this can prove to be a hot button discussion. There are very strong opinions on all sides of this discussion. Of course, I received one or two comments that were quite divisive and based on opinion alone. This then required me to take a step back and discuss the importance of critical thinking and literacy, how we identify quality resources versus those resources selling us a skewed perception, what tools we can use to help identify good and bad sources of information, and how to discuss differing political views without resorting to name calling and “whataboutisms”.

I have found that allowing social media into my classroom has really encouraged me to work on critical literacy not only for myself, but also to instill these skills in my students. This is not easy work. I have spent countless hours reading, listening and researching about critical literacy, fake news, political opinion, new source biases, and online tools to help dispel mis and disinformation. I have spent hours creating units about this skill for my students. I have spent hours editing those units so they are current when I use them again. Then, when we actually start working with this in class, it always evolves into class discussions and exploration of the different topics that come up during the lesson. This is not for everyone. It takes work to remain current. It takes a lot of research to do. It also requires teachers to model research skills and critical thought processes. Not only that, it requires teachers to self-reflect on their own personal biases and beliefs, and be aware that these concepts can colour the material that you present in class. This is easier said than done. However, it is essential to this work.

However, despite the hard work, this approach has yielded positive results, in my experience. My students not only engage in the material, but they are more likely to come to me and discuss or ask questions about something they have seen online. I allow my students to suggest topics or subject matter they would like to explore in class, and I have found that the “content currency” that you create with your students allows for this environment of trust to be built, so they are more comfortable suggesting topics of interest, sharing or questioning their world/culture with you.

Now, I know I haven’t mentioned AI at all. This is because I am really struggling with the concept in a middle years classroom. While we as adults can see and use it with nuance, teenagers are a bit more literal in their standpoints. they see it as a tool to work with, regardless if it outputs their “own” work or not. They put in the prompt, so why can’t they use it. Yes, it is more nuanced than that, but they can’t see it that way.  However, this was the main argument surrounding calculators “back in my day”. We were literally told by our teacher, “You will never have a calculator on you at all times.” Well, smartphones proved him wrong. Yes, there is a vast difference between calculators and AI, but you can kind of see students’ logic. Are there AI sites that help prompt students so they are better able to use AI as a tool and not a crutch, yes. But it takes the teacher being critical and up-to-date with current technology to be able to guide their students through this process. I ran out of time to work with Magic School Ai in my class before I left on maternity leave, but I will start implementing it when I return. This is, of course, after discussing it with my grade-alike colleagues and if they have seen a benefit from implementing it in their classrooms.

In the end, I think as long as you are critical about the sources you use, there is no harm in allowing social media to be used in the classroom. However, this means that you need to be constantly assessing its usefulness, its validity, and the intention of its creators. It takes time. Not all of us have the time to research and be as critical as this material requires us to be.