Week 6 reflection Blog

This week’s module helped me shift how I think about social media in education. It pushed me to think beyond the question of “What tool should I use?” and made me ask, “What kind of learning activity does this tool support?” This distinction is important because a tool by itself does not automatically create meaningful learning.

The idea of Networked Knowledge Activities helped me organize my thinking. Instead of treating social media as a collection of platforms, this framework encourages us to examine what learners are actually doing in networked spaces. Learners might search for information, share resources, write, comment, organize ideas, collaborate, reflect, or build knowledge with others. Dennen et al. (2020) explain that social networking sites can support different types of networked knowledge activities, but these activities depend on how people use the tools and what they are trying to accomplish. This helped me see that learning is not located in the technology itself. Learning happens through purposeful activity.

This idea aligns closely with Salomon’s (2016) argument that “it is not just the tool” that matters, but the educational rationale for using the tool. I found this point especially helpful because educators sometimes adopt social media or digital tools because they are popular, new, or familiar to students. However, if the tool is not connected to a clear learning purpose, it may become busywork rather than meaningful learning. For example, asking students to post on a blog is not, in itself, reflective learning. It becomes reflective learning when students use the blog to connect readings to experience, respond to peers, and develop ideas over time.

Overall, social media should not be used in education just because it is available. It should be used because it supports a meaningful learning activity. This shift from tools to activities feels important for my own thinking about higher education. If I want to study or design online learning spaces for students, I need to pay attention not only to what platforms students use, but also to what those platforms help students do.

References

Dennen, V. P., Word, K., Adolfson, D., Arechavaleta, V., He, D., Hsu, C.-W., Hur, J., Jung, D., Kent, H., Russell, A., & Toth, K. (2020). Using the networked knowledge activities framework to examine learning on social networking sitesLinks to an external site.. In P. Kommers & G. C. Peng (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Web-based Communities and Social Media 2020 (pp. 165-172). IADIS Press. 

Salomon, G. (2016). It’s not just the tool but the educational rationale that counts. In E. Elstad (Ed.), Educational Technology and Polycontextual Bridging (pp. 149-161). Rotterdam: SensePublishers.