http://www.euronews.com/ Social media is extremely popular, especially with young people. As a result the education world is exploring how that success can be used in the classroom.

But while students might think it is a good idea, some parents wonder if having fun on Facebook really can teach their children anything useful.

We check out the whole subject in this edition of Learning world.

*Inside a future school*

Singapore is an economic leader in South East Asia and one of the world’s top 10 competitive economies. Government policy is that education is vital to maintaining that position.

To that end, the government is looking at how social media can be used for teaching and learning purposes and it has invested heavily in overhauling and upgrading its education system, including using the latest technology.

We visited a maths class at Singapore’s Ngee Ann Secondary School. The teacher sets a question and then instructs pupils to use Twitter to quickly send her their answers.

Twitter is one of several types of social media that has been widely being used at the school since 2009 and it is popular:

One student, Lucia, told euronews: “Social networking is better, because people are sometimes shy about asking questions or voicing their opinions about certain topics, and using social media will be less awkward around each other.”

Ngee Ann is what the Singapore government calls a ‘Future School’ – that is a state run school with well-equipped labs and classrooms, where new technologies are tested to see how they could be used at other schools in the country.

It is also been named by Microsoft as a ‘Pathfinder School’ for the way it uses
technology.

The school’s principal, Adrian Lim, explained: “We want to see how we can then bring that technology in to enhance learning, because those are the tools that are used by the students and I know that if we use them well with good teaching methods, you will cause a fundamental shift in how teaching and learning is delivered in a classroom.”

Teachers now use Facebook in their classes to send web links to pupils. Students use Twitter during English lessons to summarise literary passages.

In home economics and art classes, teachers and students use picture sharing and infographics sites so everyone can see the same images.

Muneira Daud, the Head of English at Ngee Ann, says it is a useful tool: “We’re talking about using social media as and when necessary. So teachers have to learn to be strategic in when they apply social media and it should be done at a point where we can capture the students’ attention the most.”

Teachers constantly monitor and share feedback on the use of social media and other technology in the classroom to fine tune teaching methods.

They say students’ grades for project work have improved since the experiment began and the teachers acknowledge that they too are learning all the time from their pupils.

*Meet the ‘tra-digital’ professor*

The questions remains, do teachers really have to use Facebook and Twitter? What are the advantages and why do some people think it is so important to get technology into the classroom? We put those questions to Sreenath Sreenivasan, a technology journalist and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University in New York.

Professor Sreenivasan, who has the title of chief digital officer at Columbia University, says there have not really been many big leaps and innovations in education in the last 200 years: “You could say maybe the dry erase marker and powerpoint are the two latest innovations in education… which is kind of crazy… to think that education should be the only form of human activity that hasn’t innovated.”

He says the big innovation is going on right now – and it is called Social Media. It is more powerful than the cell phone, but as unpredictable as any innovation.

For example – in 1996 nobody really knew what to do with emails. Now there is a similar problem with social media, both out in the world and in schools.

“Teachers need to be taught about social media, just like they needed to be taught about using the web and email and it’s not a generational thing, as much as it is an attitude thing. Some of the best people I know in social media are in their 70s. And then I know people in their 20s who know nothing about social media. They think they know, but they just go on Facebook and post a photo,” says Professor Sreenivasan.

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