Final Project- IDT 516

Hey Everyone!

So I've been stewing somewhat over this final project, trying to think of a topic that I would enjoy, could use in the future, and fits in my time frame- lots of variables! My situation is unique in that I have a large population of participants accessible to me in that I am a graduate assistant on campus, and so I interact with students everyday. However, since I work in the music office, most of the students I encounter are music education students. Therein lies my question- what can I bring to them that they would find useful in their future classrooms?

One of the most influential forces in our current student's lives is driven through social media. Therefore, I feel we should find ways to embrace it in our classroom. My initial thought for my final project is to do an overview of how to use social media in your classroom, with an emphasis on practice uses for music education and speciality courses. I plan on focusing on three social media tools that I feel could be most useful and most easily implemented in their classrooms: Twitter, Pinterest, and Wikis (through Pbworks or Google Drive).

My hope for this lesson is not just for future educators to get training on how to use these technologies, but actually use them during the lesson, and get practice on using these tools before they must teach and advise students on how to use them. While I feel that these future educators have a pretty good grasp on using technology, I want to make sure that they have ideas and strategies to focus that knowledge into having a more efficient, engaging classroom.

Objectives: Students will be able to.....
1. Explain the purpose of social media in their classroom
2. Demonstrate and Implement Twitter into their classroom.
3. Demonstrate and Implement Pinterest into their classroom.
4. Demonstrate and Implement Wikis into their classroom.

My setup of my lesson would be something similar to this:

1. Introduction and Why Social Media?

2. Social Media Tool #1- Twitter
2a. How to use Twitter
2b. Using Twitter Activity

3.  Social Medial Tool #2- Pinterest
2a. How to use Pinterest
2b. Using Pinterest Activity

4. Social Media Tool #3- Wikis
4a. How to use Wikis
4b. Using wikis activity

5. Wrap-Up and Q&A

I think for this lesson I would like to use a survey to see what students liked, didn't like, and how effective they felt my presentation was, so that I can reflect on that and make it more engaging in the future.

What do you think? Feel free to comment and give suggestions- Thanks!