Skip to main content

Digital Pioneers?

By

 


   Social Media: who uses it, who is oblivious to it, and who masters it?

   The generation you are part of may influence the degree to which you use social    media. Let's say you're a grandmother of three and you retired from the              corporate world 15 years ago. Your grandkids are ages 2, 4, and 8. You live          three hours away from them and your daughter keeps you updated through       Facebook which you've mastered.

   Your daughter uses Instagram and Snapchat with her friends to stay updated       with each other's kids. My question is: is the grandmother a social networker, a    digital native, a digital pioneer, or something else? What about the daughter?

    The point is that a person's generational status doesn't define a person's social      networking status. In any generation you can find people who are skilled in        social media and active uses. In any generation you can find people who            wouldn't say anything positive about social media. They might say that they        don't understand the point, or they don't trust sharing personal information         with "the world". 

    As Instructional Designers it's important that we respect our learner's                preferences for social media. We also need to avoid generalizing people based     on their generation. Doing so is divisive and can cut us off from reaching all        learners. Be careful not to judge your learners' abilities with technology or            social media. Whether they participate or not with social media isn't the point.      We designers need to understand our learner's needs and motivations and find     tools that meet these needs.

Comments

  1. Huong Jean TruongJune 4, 2023 at 7:42 PM

    Hi Dzine2Learn! I love the notion of this post and the term "Digital Pioneers". At the end of the day, I believe that the idea of social media is to connect people together regardless of physical distance, and by becoming a pioneer in establishing a social media network between our loved ones, we can surely unlock their new learning journey!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Share your comments here

Popular posts from this blog

Smartsheet: an alternative to Microsoft Project

By
For years Microsoft Project dominated the market for project management software. It has a steep learning curve and is an expensive per seat cost. I was a technical writer for a small software company that used MS Project for the three project managers and myself. While I enjoyed learning about the science of project management from them in our meetings, I discovered that using the software was not that intuitive. I plugged in the tasks and timelines for several projects only to discover how challenging it was to have to refactor dates. It seemed to mess up the entire project such that I just stopped using it. It was more time consuming setting it up and refactoring it than just inputting status to show our progress. It looks like a better option is SmartSheet which is used by many major companies. You can sign up for a free trial to get familiar with it. The more you can learn about tools to manage instructional design projects, the more likely you are to be considered for the team. T
2 comments
Read more

How much do apps matter in Instructional Design?

By
https://www.aura.com/learn/social-media-privacy-risks This week in my graduate course we discussed social media tools - Web 2.0 - that are useful in learning environments. My disclosure is that I typically don't use social media for personal use, and this makes it a bigger jump to think about using it for learning purposes. The irony is that I enrolled in this elective class because I am intrigued about using social media for learning environments.  The points I vacillate on are data security and time commitment. With data security I would need to ensure that learners' data, user profiles, etc. are protected. This isn't the same thing if it's higher education and the university is using an LMS. FERPA and a contract protect student data and how it's used. With free social media apps there's more risk to a learner's content. I'm still exploring these tools to determine if there are settings to protects our learner's identities and content. One thing th
1 comment
Read more

Easygenerator content authoring app

By
Here's another newer app that I just discovered. Maybe you already know about this one? Easygenerator sounds like its name. Like many apps it can convert PowerPoint slide decks to e-learning. https://www.easygenerator.com/en/features/powerpoint-import/ The thing with these content authoring apps is always the price. If you work on a team it's more likely your manager would approve of subscribing to some sort of app. It's not cheap, though. Take a look at the pricing below. Also, if you work independently either for a small business or as a contractor, the $1000 annual fee needs to be factored into the ROI of your projects. Do you think these prices are reasonable or a bit out of reach?
1 comment
Read more