Technology Teach-In: Beating Functional Fixedness with Social Media

Recently, I wrote an article on the use of technology in the classroom as part of an assignment. Originally intended to be an article describing only the use of Facebook in a specific social studies lesson, it quickly turned into an overall promotion of social media in education through a psychology lens. Included below is the introduction to my article:

"The internet has quickly become the new frontier in education and educators have exploded onto the world-wide web with ingenious ideas of how to utilize technology in the classroom. As a result, many teachers have explored this new frontier and implemented its vast resources to enhance student learning. There are some educators (and parents), however, that are more hesitant to share in the excitement and argue that there are dangers associated with bringing technology, specifically social media, into the classroom. Indeed, the use of social media in schools remains a source of contention among educators and some point to the distracting nature of social media and its difficulty to police as reasons for keeping it out of the classroom. While certainly legitimate reasons for dubiousness, this hesitation is rooted in the fear of functional fixedness. In short, functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits our ability to view an object's use to anything other than it’s intended function (Duncker, 1945). In this case, the fear is that students are unable to view social media as anything but a social space, thereby diminishing its effectiveness as an educational tool. The solution that follows as a result, is not to eliminate social media from the classroom, but to beat functional fixedness.

Today’s generation of students has grown up amidst the social media craze, so their view of social media as strictly a socialization tool makes sense - but it does not have to be their sole perspective. In fact, the cost failing to beat functional fixedness is too high. Social media is already infiltrating our classrooms regardless of teachers’ efforts to control it. Whether students access it stealthily via cellphones in class or under the guise of “researching” in the computer lab, the avenue for entry does not matter as long as it continues to be a distraction. Instead, let educators bring social media into their classrooms on their own terms. Educators, therefore, can help our students beat functional fixedness by incorporating social media in the classrooms and utilizing it in a way that not only enhances learning, but fosters creativity. Why not transform an otherwise distraction into a valuable learning tool that just might transcend school walls?"

After writing this article, I feel obligated to practice what I preach. Staying true to my original notion of using Facebook, I have since begun developing a lesson using this social media site. As of now, I envision this lesson taking place towards the end of the school year during either the Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome Unit. Because there tends to be a number of important historical figures involved in each of these units, I want to have students, working individually or in groups (I haven't decided), create Facebook profiles for their historical figure. As part of this assignment, they would create an "About Me" section, add a profile picture, and complete a the timeline of events for their assigned character. I also think it might be fun to create a Facebook event for a significant historical event that their character was involved in. Finally, I am entertaining the idea of having students post status updates as their character and then commenting on each other's updates, playing the role of their assigned historical figure.

I have not quite worked out all the details yet, but these are my initial thoughts.I explained my reasoning for using social media above, so I will not repeat it here. I will, however, mention that I think this type of assignment would enhance student learning. I think it is a novel way of enticing students to conduct research on a historical figure and perhaps presenting it in a way that feels more natural to them than I standard research report. In fact, I think in some ways it is perhaps even more complex in that it challenges students to present traditional content information in an unconventional way and it allows for more student creativity. In addition, I would hope that an assignment such as this might begin to beat functional fixedness and encourage students to see social media in a new light,  thereby extending the learning outside of the immediate classroom environment.

Finally I do anticipate some hesitation from my school (and possibly parents) regarding the use of  social media in the classroom. One alternative I plan to use as a Plan B is Fakebook - a site that has templates for fake facebook profiles specifically intended for educational use. This might be a safer option for my school and one that I think will still work. As I mentioned, these are only my initial thoughts on incorporating this type of lesson into my curriculum. I would be appreciative of any and all feedback/advice/comments/suggestions for the purpose of improving this lesson. Thank you in advance for your advice!