Can Social Media Shape Education?

I'll start off by stating an obvious... social media is massive.

News is delivered almost instantaneously via social networking applications. Images are shared from individual personal devices to an audience of every networked device around the world.Videos are broadcast from a lounge room to an audience of billions. Audio can be recorded in a garage and played on international stations. Messages can be sent from a student and read by the President.

To me, that is amazing and exciting. With the use of one smartphone I can connect and share with anyone, anywhere, almost immediately.

Some educators may remain sceptical about the use of social media in school. After all there is a lot of noise that you have to filter through, such as this....

And yet, as a teacher, I have found myself asking 'can I learn from social media?'

This week saw a massive learning opportunity go viral around the world. The story was on everyone's phone, in all the newspapers globally, on every international news station. It impacted on individuals from all walks of life, from young children to adult scholars.

What colour is this dress?

Its very easy to dismiss this viral sensation as pointless. I did when I first saw the post appear on my Facebook feed. 

After a few seconds however, I reconsidered and recognised the power of a single social network post. It got me thinking how I as a Teacher could harness this power.

One simple image had generated such interest. Is it white and gold? Is it blue and black? 

Yes, the initial attraction to this issue is trivial, but as soon as the conflict occurs between who sees white and gold and who sees blue and black, a massive opportunity for learning is opened. Everyone wants to know why? Why do I see such a dramatic difference in colour when we are both looking at the same image?

Interest is sparked and a want, or need, to learn occurs.

That is why the following day international newsrooms such as BBC, SMH, NYT, etc are publishing articles explaining colour perception and ambient light cues.

There are two things about social media that I, as an educator, desperately want to harness:

1. Its ability to generate interest

2. Its ability to connect

If that one individual who posted the 'dressgate' image had posted a simple question of:

 'Could someone please explain colour perception and ambient light cues?'

I seriously doubt if the response would have gone viral. There would not have been such a global interest, there would definitely not have been published responses from BBC, SMH or NYT!

The image ignited an interest and a curiosity to learn more.

This could be an extremely powerful tool for eduction. 

How can teachers use the techniques that are so successful in viral social media in order to generate such an interest and need to learn....