Teacher, teach more!

From December 7 to 9, 2010, the second World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) was held in the capital of Qatar, Doha. More than 1,200 people who have anything to do with educational and teaching activities took part in its work. Plenary and WISE sessions covered a variety of education-related topics, from needed reforms and new approaches to teacher training to education funding and building schools in hard-to-reach areas.

Among other things, the summit participants discussed the use of new technologies in teaching. New technologies, in particular, meant social networks - namely Twitter and Facebook (the incredibly popular Live Journal in Russia is, at best, in third place abroad).

The idea of ​​using Facebook and Twitter to educate schoolchildren and students seems strange at first glance. For example, parents traditionally perceive all these newfangled social networks as an absolute evil - of course, because children spend a huge amount of time on them instead of reading textbooks or solving problems. But proponents of introducing online communication platforms into education have presented a number of arguments that seem quite reasonable.

Firstly, social networks make learning more individual: students who want to explore a topic or subject more deeply can unite in online groups, within which they will publish links to materials that interest them and conduct discussions. In general classroom lessons, such immersion in the issue is impossible, and no one usually has enough enthusiasm or time to specially gather somewhere to discuss certain interesting details.

In addition, with the help of social networks, students can ask their teacher any questions that suddenly come to mind at any time. While preparing for exams or doing homework, it often turns out that some essential points necessary for building a single logical picture remain unclear. The ability to clarify difficult passages for yourself will allow students to better assimilate new material. But in extracurricular communication between students and teachers on the Internet, there is one danger - very often students forget about subordination, out of habit, addressing the teacher in the same way as friends and “friends”.

Another advantage of social networks is that they allow students to directly contact people they are interested in - famous scientists, heads of friendly laboratories, and leaders of research projects. Before services like Facebook appeared, reaching the right person was much more difficult - you had to go through many tedious intermediate steps, such as negotiating with secretaries and deputies or sending requests to press services. Knowing about the upcoming burdensome correspondence, many did not even try to contact someone outside of school or university.

Using social networks, students can work on projects together with students from other countries. The deeper meaning of such interaction is not very clear, although communication with people from other countries will at least help improve your knowledge of foreign languages. Well, and besides, new contacts sometimes turn out to be very useful.

Finally, Facebook, Twitter or the same “Live Journal” allow, in the apt expression of one of the summit speakers, “the voiceless to find a voice, and the impersonal to have a face.” Often, creatively gifted children are shy, and it is difficult for them to express themselves against the background of more active and spontaneous comrades. On online platforms, such children can open up, and the results of their activities will be visible to hundreds of people, including teachers and future employers.

And most importantly, social networks have become an integral part of the lives of modern children. Outside of school, they constantly correspond with someone on the Internet, comment on friends' posts and exchange links - the virtual world is as familiar to them (and sometimes much more familiar) as real life. Therefore, if children do not find anything from this virtual environment at school, they perceive it as something alien. To stimulate children's interest in learning, teachers will have to incorporate new technologies into the educational process (which, in fact, are new only to teachers).

This is where the problems begin. Young teachers, who until recently were schoolchildren and students, use social networks with all their might, and it is not difficult for them to post homework on Facebook or talk about interesting additional materials in communities on LiveJournal. But older teachers, as well as parents, do not want to accept this strange world of Internet communication for them and, moreover, are often inclined to view it as an obstacle on their children’s path to knowledge. And even if such teachers are forced to use Facebook in their work, they will most likely do so reluctantly - just “for show.” So, enthusiasts of introducing social networks into the educational process need, first of all, to figure out how to captivate older generation teachers with them.