Teaching to Designing

Simply inserting social media into education will not enhance learning. Teachers must know how to use these tools to provide meaningful learning activities with explicit learning intentions. To select appropriate technologies for my classroom as an elementary teacher, I try to focus on tools that promote collaboration, creativity, and engagement. If used purposefully, tools like social media and other web tools can assist in creating connected and engaging learning. Question: Which Web tool do you feel has had the greatest influence on learning?

YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram. When you hear “social media”, do you think education? These are social media platforms that can facilitate education by allowing you to collect resources, share ideas, and collaborate with others to gain knowledge. We learn something new from social media every day and we do not even know it. The hard part is determining if you're just scrolling or learning. What is something valuable you learned from social media lately?

Yearly there’s a new app/device/platform that will change education as we know it. But what if we aren’t asking the right questions about how we can use technology to learn? One takeaway from Salomon’s reading that resonated with me was that technology is not the creator of learning. Technology may catch our attention with all of its bells and whistles, but learning is when that technology has an educational purpose. We can look up information using technology. However, processing that information into knowledge takes thought, conversation, and application. Thought: What are some EdTech tools that you have used that have enhanced your learning? Why? 

Online communities are diverse groups of people. Some want to share their thoughts on everything. Others quietly browse through all the content without interacting. Both types of people help create online communities and contribute to sharing knowledge. If online communities had yearbooks, would you be voted "Most Likely to Post" or "Most Likely to Lurk"? Why? 😊😄.

I have recently read an article by Shaif Hemraj (2025) regarding AI technologies transforming movie, television, and video game productions. Visuals can now be rendered through AI as well as scripts and productions can be made faster with all the help of AI. However, if we use all these fun tools to help cut down on time in production, where does the creativity come from? If a machine is generating half of this content, where does the originality go? Will movies really have that special something if they are completely made by AI? I believe that AI should be used as more of a partner in the production process. What are your thoughts? Comment!! Hemraj, S. (2025). AI and the future of creative development: Redefining digital media production. AI and Ethics.

 The given article aims to explain how information credibility travels across online communities specifically social networking sites, microblogs and wikis. The author Babajide Osatuyi talks about sharing credibility which relates to credibility of information and credibility of the sharer.  He researched gossip, sensitive topics, sensational information, political news and casual info sharing.  His research shows how individuals hint or imply credibility through an array of factors website link, areas of interest, embedded photos etc. Readers can understand the concept of information dynamism and provide organizational solutions to reach their digital consumers. Have you ever shared information online that later turned out to be inaccurate? If so, how did it affect the way you evaluate information now? Osatuyi, B. (2013). Information sharing on social media sites. Computers in Human Behavior , 29 (6), 2622–2631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.001 As information...