To increase K-12 student engagement in the classroom, Primary and Secondary teachers substantially rely on free web resources, including content from social media. Social media is impacting how teachers think about content licensing and sharing.
A survey of Primary and Secondary teachers in the Greater Toronto Area was conducted during the summer of 2021. The aim was to understand the role of free content in their classroom and the current professional culture around acquiring and sharing free educational content.
The conversations with K-12 teachers reveal several things. Firstly, formal professional development for content licensing is lacking. Secondly, teachers are happy to share their own content for free but they can be hindered by their own fears. Thirdly, teachers face barriers to sharing their own content effectively. These three aspects impede the availability of high-quality K-12 OER (Open Education Resources).
The presentation will elaborate on the role of social media in the dissemination of K-12 education content. We are going to do this in two steps. First, we will look at the ‘how’. That is how social media has influenced the three aforementioned factors, crucial to OER growth. Second, we look at the ‘why’. That is, we want to understand why social media plays a much bigger role for K-12 teachers versus Post-Secondary education.
Growing K-12 OER will require understanding the current landscape. Social media plays an important role in this landscape and it is shaping the culture around educational content sharing. Thus understanding the role of social media is crucial to the advancement and growth of high-quality K-12 OER.
Finally, speculation is put forth, that the K-12 OER requires Bilateral Content Sharing Synergy more so than the Post-Secondary OER. A Bilateral Content Sharing Synergy is the ability to grow a two-way give-and-take relationship between Content Creators and teachers. Content creators can be either teachers or professional content creators who share content under OER. Currently, social media, which is the dominant mechanism of K-12 educational content dissemination lacks functionality in building this kind of synergy.
The 10 min lighting talk will use animated PowerPoint with voice.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Provide reasons why social media plays such an important role in the dissemination of K-12 OER and other free K-12 resources.
- Provide examples of how social media impacts K-12 content sharing.
- Describe what is meant by Bilateral Content Sharing Synergy.
