A Quick Recap & Reflection On This Course So Far

I think most of you can agree with me that we have definitely achieved much in the last four weeks of this course. So much so that as I recap on tools that we had been introduced to, the class activities that we had dabbled in, the interactions that we had on social media, I must say the list is pretty long! So as I rolled back the time and try to recollect how and why we had been using each of the tools for, everything seems much clearly to me now.

In week 1, we started our individual blogs and began our blogging journey. We jumped onto Twitter and tweeted our lives away. We explored networks and communities, and how they can work for us. Essentially, we learned how to share resources via such blogging and online/social bookmarking platforms, and important piece of how we engage with one another in the online environment.

In week 2, we explored tools such as LinkedIn, Instagram and Snapchat in relation to PLNs. We dived into communities to observe how they function and understand norms associated with each of them. Essentially, we learned how social networking can expand one’s resources to attain specific knowledge or information.

In week 3, we tried Pinterest, Flickr, Reddit, Diigo and other tools to discover more resources, and in the process understood how their utilities can support us to promote or search for expertise knowledge. Essentially, we learned how social bookmarking/tagging is fundamental to how these tools function and operate. We also engaged one another on IP issues on the social media, and how to tackle them.

And this week, we started with Wikis and Google Maps, and in the process learned how the creation of online workspaces could promote and facilitate collaborative activities within the class. This has also nicely provided the backdrop for us to think deeper about instructional design for social media.

So how do we approach instructional design for social media?

From our collective experiences, I can say that it is indeed undeniable that social media has kept us highly engaged and intellectually challenged. It is a unique process where we explored and discovered new territories. It is experiential learning in practice. While we enjoy the activities and the process of learning, we also have to reflect upon our learning experiences and evaluate our growth. Using this course as an example, the graded assignments and projects provided a good avenue for that formal assessment piece. In other words, when designing instruction for social media, one must not be distracted by merely focusing on the learning activities, but the emphasis must also be placed on the learning outcomes.