Undertaking this subject has shifted my thinking in relation to the value of social media in education. I started off with deeply rooted misgivings in relation to the relevance of social media in academic environments, as it was my understanding that social media celebrated superficial and fleeting connections among its participants. However, as I immersed myself in the various readings and online class discussions, I was able to envisage the great potential of Web 2.0 technologies and social media in the advancement of knowledge in a digitally dominated world (Giannikas, 2020). Not only that, but I was able to grasp the power social media has in furthering the collective construction of ideas (Giannikas, 2020), especially in educational contexts where the use of mobile technologies permits learners to connect with each other and with their instructors through a commonly shared social network (Acheampong & Agyemang, 2021).

While I habitually employ software applications in my daily library duties, such as the electronic cataloguing and circulation of learning resources, I was not aware of the potential of social media or mobile technologies in the enhancement and promotion of library services (Acheampong & Agyemang, 2021). Importantly, the creation of a library Instagram account for the first assignment has allowed me to harness social media through the promotion of the social good beyond the location of the physical library (Alfonzo, 2019; Cole, 2016). I have made an informed choice when selecting Instagram as the preferred social media platform to engage with my school teenage audience, as the appeal of this visual platform with a young demographic has been extensively highlighted in the academic literature (Alfonzo, 2019; Manca, 2020).

Reading about the benefits of social media in nurturing interpersonal trust and encouraging community participation has resonated with me and my school context (Kwon et al., 2020). I work in a diverse, all-girls high school where students are proud of their culture and where multiculturalism is celebrated through events that bring the school community together, such as Harmony Day and Traditional Dress Day. The library Instagram account acts as a reminder to students of these crucial events in the school calendar, thereby fostering identity-related use (Kwon et al., 2020). Importantly, a social media platform managed by a librarian can offer a safe space where students share their thoughts and feelings about social connection, inclusivity and tolerance (Kwon et al., 2020). I learnt that the creative potential of Instagram is particularly relevant in an era where 21^st century skills are central to a well-rounded and future-focused education, as Instagram offers a platform where students can be taught the latest technologies through engagement with library and school activities (Alfonzo, 2019). In the future, I will seek the approval of the school executive body to create a real library Instagram account, which can be linked to and promoted through the official school Facebook page. This social media initiative will not only increase the exposure of the library in the school community, but also address the informational needs of tech-savvy users in a landscape where online connectivity and instant communication are the norm (Williams, 2020).

Despite the numerous advantages of using social media in education, through the course of this subject I have also learnt that mainstream platforms need to be employed with caution, owing to the challenges and dangers inherent in their mass consumption (Di Gangi et al., 2018; Manca, 2020). In a high school context, it is imperative to protect the students’ security and privacy against the threats of indiscriminate and impersonal online use of information. Therefore, the content posted on the library social media account should be carefully scrutinised by the librarian and support staff. This is important because social media platforms belong to private companies whose policies do not necessarily align with those of a public school with strict accountability rules and codes of conduct (Aitchison & Meckled-Garcia, 2021).

The field of Social Network Analysis was unknown to me prior to completing this subject (Hicks et al., 2020). It has been fascinating to learn that there is a well-established methodology in Social Sciences that identifies the structural relationships of library members and their communities. This data can greatly inform and facilitate the provision of services that are tailored to the communities of use (Hicks et al.,2020). In my school context, the students harness the learning potential of the library in different ways, some of them rely on its information resources for their school assignments, while others use it as a sanctuary amidst the hustle and bustle of school life. In the future, I will endeavour to create evaluation tools that will assess the patterns of relationships between the school community and the library. This could be attained through regular student surveys, focus groups and interviews, and the data gleaned through these tools would contribute to building an engaged community of users that take pride in their participation in the school library.

This subject has left me with invaluable insights that I will apply to my information organisation going forward. One of the key lessons has been learning about the potential of augmented and virtual reality in education, especially through facilitating reading practices among a teenage audience enchanted with virtual worlds (Hannah et al, 2019; Reynolds et al., 2020). In addition, my view of the role of the librarian has changed after reading about the impact of artificial intelligence in library contexts (Hervieux & Wheatley, 2021). I will endeavour to provide a space in my school library for the development of the latest technologies in education, while also seeking teaching partnerships with STEM specialists.

The experience of being a participant in the Facebook group has encouraged interaction between myself and other students, that has enabled peer-knowledge exchange and other professional learning groups in the future. Online communities of practice can lead to collaborative professional learning development, as social media offers a democratic platform where diverse views can be expressed (Luo & Hostetler, 2020). The blog has been a pleasurable and at times surprising experience, that has enabled insight into different perspectives on social media, and the exchange of genuine and in-depth knowledge between co-bloggers.

Word count: 1017

References

Acheampong, E., & Agyemang, F. G. (2021). Enhancing academic library services provision in the distance learning environment with mobile technologies. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(1), 102279.

Aitchison, G., & Meckled-Garcia, S. (2021). Against online public shaming: Ethical problems with mass social media. Social Theory & Practice, 47(1), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract20201117109

Alfonzo, P. (2019). Instagram in the library. Library Technology Reports, 55(2), 33-42.

Cole, Laura (2016) BiblioTech as the Re-Imagined Public Library: Where Will it Find You?

 Di Gangi, P.M., Johnston, A.C., Worrell, J.L.& Thompson, S.C. (2018). What could possibly go wrong? A multi-panel Delphi study of organizational social media risk. Inf Syst Front, 20, 1097–1116.

Giannikas, C. (2020). Facebook in tertiary education: The impact of social media in e-learning. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 17(1), 3.

Hervieux, S., & Wheatley, A. (2021). Perceptions of artificial intelligence: A survey of academic librarians in Canada and the United States. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(1), 102270. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102270

Hicks, D., Cavanagh, M. F., & VanScoy, A. (2020). Social network analysis: A methodological approach for understanding public libraries and their communities. Library & Information Science Research, 42(3), 101029.

Kwon, K. H., Shao, C., & Nah, S. (2020). Localized social media and civic life: Motivations, trust, and civic participation in local community contexts. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 1-15.

Manca, S. (2020). Snapping, pinning, liking or texting: Investigating social media in higher education beyond Facebook. The Internet and Higher Education, 44, 100707. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.101016/j.iheduc.2019. 100707

Reynolds, K., Schofield, T., & Trujillo-Pisanty, D. (2020). Children’s magical realism for new spatial interactions: augmented reality and the David Almond archives. Children’s Literature in Education, 51(4), 502-518.

Williams, M. L. (2020). The adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in academic libraries: A comparative exploration. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 52(1), 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000618788725

Choose one of the resources above and write a 400-word analysis that addresses the following issues:

What is the potential for the future of an organisation you are familiar with?

What impact might the future have on us as information professionals?

Libraries are struggling to stay current in a world dominated by ever-changing digital technologies (Hervieux & Wheatley, 2021). Providing innovative services that engage and support the latest technologies, such as the maker space movement, has been the focus of libraries and librarians in recent times (Hervieux & Wheatley, 2021). One of the most prominent technological trends in the last two decades has been in the field of Artificial Intelligence (Hervieux & Wheatley, 2021). Artificial Intelligence is concerned with computer systems that display some form of intelligence, such as learning new tasks, reasoning and evaluating the world around us (Msauki, 2021).

In my school library context, there is great potential to utilise Artificial Intelligence in order to enhance library services and motivate tech-savvy students to be active library members. This would be attained by applying the principles of AI to the library, for example through a computer programme that can monitor the books that come in and out, rather than having to scan the books manually. However, I will need to educate myself in the main functions of these systems, as well as their relevance in my school library context, before implementing this technology in the library (Hervieux & Wheatley, 2021). This could be done through attending specialised professional learning sessions delivered by experts in Science and Technology.

After gaining knowledge about artificial intelligence and its potential use in education, I would be able to liaise with STEM teachers in order to apply this technology to learning programs. For example,  new lessons about this emerging field may be embedded in current units of work. These lessons can then be taught in the library space through a partnership between the teacher librarian and STEM teachers. The students can be encouraged to work collaboratively on inquiry-based learning projects that require them to create a robot that would perform basic library duties, such as answering routine questions and stacking books on shelves (Axelsson, 2019). The students could design a prototype of this robot on their devices by consulting relevant resources online with the STEM teacher’s assistance. This type of deep learning would promote the acquisition of all 21^st century skills, namely real-world problem solving, critical thinking, using ICT purposefully and collaboration. Such an innovative endeavour will not only teach students the main characteristics and creative scope of artificial intelligence, but also provide the opportunity for them to design a robot in real life.

The advent of the Internet and consequent development of cutting edge technologies, has forever changed the modern educational landscape. The field of AI holds great promise for schools and libraries. Students need to be taught the skills that will enable them to understand technological problems that may not exist yet, but that will probably materialise in the not too distant future.

References

Axelsson, M. (2019). The little robot that lived at the library [Blog post].https://towardsdatascience.com/the-little-robot-that-lived-at-the-library-90431f34ae2c

Hervieux, S., & Wheatley, A. (2021). Perceptions of artificial intelligence: A survey of academic librarians in Canada and the United States. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(1), 102270. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102270

Msauki, G. (2021) Library 4.0 and sustainable development: Opportunities and challenges. In, J. P. Chigwada &  N. M. Nwaohiri (Eds.), Examining the Impact of Industry 4.0 on Academic Libraries. Emerald Publishing Limi

Even though digital networks and online communication are ubiquitous in society, there are still marked disparities in population representation across social media platforms (Dargin et al., 2021). These differences stem from a range of factors, such as gender, race, ethnicity and socioeconomic background (Dargin et al., 2021). It is important to bear in mind that beyond the digital world, there is still a physical society with multiple complexities, diverse citizenry and inherent inequalities. In every society, there are people who are well off and people who are struggling to survive. For example, in Australia, there are indigenous people who have been victims of abuse, neglect and discrimination for over two hundred years, and who still have to defend their identity from unfounded accusations of illegitimacy and criminality (Carlson & Kennedy, 2021). In South Africa, most students from lower-socio economic backgrounds are deprived of the numerous benefits of using social media in higher education, such as enhanced collaboration between teachers and students, and public participation in educational projects (Mphahlele et al., 2021). These are just two examples of the paradoxical make-up of social media. On the one hand, its presence in our lives is irrefutable, but on the other hand, not all social groups have equal access to its uses and benefits (Dargin et al., 2021).

The information organisation I work for is a multi-cultural all-girls high school located on the banks of the Parramatta river in Western Sydney. Over ninety per cent of the students come from language backgrounds other than English, comprising mostly Arabic, Tamil and Hindi speakers. The school’s family occupation and employment index falls below the Australian average of socio-economic advantage, which indicates that these families are faced with daily challenges perhaps unknown to the middle classes (Dekker & Mullan, 2021). The school mission is to empower students to achieve their personal best and beyond, by teaching them the necessary skills to succeed in an ever-changing world dominated by technology. In this socially rich school context, social media has the potential to foster integration and tolerance among a multitude of ethnicities with different lifestyles and religious beliefs. Importantly, social media can encourage immigrant families to connect with their local neighbours in a constructive and meaningful way, thereby promoting inclusivity and a sense of belonging among these diverse social groups (Dekker & Mullan, 2021).

The girls who attend my school constitute a very specific sociological group. Many of them have just arrived in Australia from war-torn countries. They consequently aspire to high levels of education, both through their parents’ encouragement and through their own personal motivation. With  literacy, with ambition, they aim to become highly-regarded professionals in the future, namely lawyers, doctors and architects. With their teachers’ expert guidance, they will work tirelessly towards that, and they will use the Internet and social media to obtain relevant information, to improve their literacy levels, to be more knowledgeable and language-proficient, and to contact people around the world quickly and efficiently. In some instances, newly arrived immigrants can be judged as belonging to ghetto type communities, not speaking English very well, not relating with the Anglo society, and falling victim to racism. However, these newly-arrived immigrants can actually still use social media platforms, and the Internet, purposefully and with the long-term goal of overcoming their adverse circumstances always at the forefront of their minds. The children of immigrant families know that education is the gateway to a better life, and social media can facilitate that vital transition.

Immigrant children still use the Internet for recreational purposes, but they seem to display an undercurrent of purpose and determination when they engage online, that children from Western families do not seem to have. This is probably due to the fact that they do not wish to replicate their parents’ harsh, and at times alienated, reality in their own futures. They know that by educating themselves and by building productive networks, they can get out of entry-level, low-paying jobs, such as the ones their parents are destined to have due to their limited language proficiency. These children can get a university career, and they can get a decent job if they apply themselves. They can change their lives through education, and the electronic, digital connectivity can enable all of that and more. There are traps to social media which young immigrant girls will be susceptible to, such as falling for its excessive emphasis on image and glamour. However, if they are smart, and they are determined, they can work things out for themselves, they will use electronic media to grow a network around them, to find good career options, to study properly, to obtain useful knowledge, and this will pave the way for their smooth integration into Australian society.

The school library can act as an information hub where classes and specialist teachers hold group discussions about the advantages of using social media to create culturally inclusive communities (Dekker & Mullan, 2021). Importantly, students can be taught how the affordances provided by social media platforms and applications can be harnessed to help their parents and extended families feel at home in Australia. For example, the students can take part in inquiry-based learning projects where they produce informative flyers and recreate real-life scenarios about social media groups of diverse membership base, and how these can ease the integration into Australian society (Dekker & Mullan, 2021). In information literacy classes, the students can be taught how to create a social media account of their choice to promote social harmony and well-being. This can be implemented through a professional partnership between the teacher librarian and ICT specialists. Learning programs can be adapted to include units about how to use social media responsibly to connect with local civic activities, and how to share information about social issues, such as the pandemic and its devastating effects on society. This would be highly beneficial among disadvantaged communities, as it has been found that health negative outcomes correlate directly with digital communication inequalities (Dargin et al., 2021).

Social media has only been around for less than 20 years. Nevertheless, in that short period, it has absorbed so much of society and has so accurately reflected people’s attitudes, values and norms. However, despite its global reach and widespread popularity, there are still marginalised social groups that fail to access its many benefits and possibilities. Social media acts as a mirror to these already existing social inequalities.

References

Carlson, B., & Kennedy, T. (2021). Us mob online: The perils of identifying as indigenous on social media. Genealogy, 5(2), 52.

Dargin, J. S., Fan, C., & Mostafavi, A. (2021) Vulnerable populations and social media use in disasters: Uncovering the digital divide in three major U.S. hurricanes. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 54, 102043

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102043

Dekker, K., & Mullan, K. (2021). Cohesive diverse suburbs in Australian: A case study of policy processes and social media in Footscray. Urban Policy and Research, 1-17.

https://doi.org/10.1080/08111146.2021.1974829

Mphahlele, M. I., Mokwena, S. N., & Ilorah, A. (2021). The impact of digital divide for first-year students in adoption of social media for learning in South Africa. South African Journal of Information Management, 23(1).

https://doi.org/https;//dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajim.v23i1.1344

Based on your interests and/or workplace context, after exploring some of the above resources, reflect on your new learning about one of the above areas of concern (in terms of your possible work as an information professional) in a 350 word post in your learning journal.

As the Internet has evolved and expanded, so have the ways that social media platforms and search engines, such as Facebook and Google, monitor and collect data of end users (Crocco et al., 2020; Marino, 2021). In educational contexts, this means that students may inadvertently share their private information while conducting an online search for their school assignments, or while participating in the school Facebook page. In view of this threat to a child’s personal security, it is imperative that both subject teachers and teacher librarians equip themselves with the necessary tools to deliver privacy training as part of digital literacy endeavours (Marino, 2021).

When children use the internet to access information, they will always leave a digital footprint behind them. For example, if they fill up a form or sign up for a newsletter, do they actually know who is going to use their details, and more importantly, how they are going to use them? In light of this potential risk, it is paramount that students gain knowledge of what big tech companies are doing to harvest their data, for example through the integration of third party software applications in educational and library websites (Marino, 2021).

These are the important questions that we need to engage our students in, both in specific subjects, and in wellbeing programs delivered as whole school initiatives (Crocco et al., 2021). When students provide personal information online, what databases do their details sit in, and do these become used by a third party (Marino, 2021)?  Information about them may give online companies commercial knowledge about their interests, and this information can be sold on to other companies without their permission or even awareness that this lucrative manipulation of their information is taking place (Crocco et al., 2021).

Students need to be careful, realising that information is harvested and used, and sold on. As a librarian I can have open discussions about the strategies that companies put in place to share data (Marino, 2021). However, I am not going to be able to to stop this practice, and anybody can be susceptible. It doesn’t matter how old you are, or how bright you are. While children are tech-savvy and fluent online, big tech companies still succeed in obtaining valuable personal data, especially due to the extended hours children spend online (Crocco et al., 2020).

Students need to be made aware that giving away their personal data to other companies means that it can be sold on by third parties. Their data is valuable. Their profile gives these big companies commercial knowledge in what Zuboff has termed surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019). As a teacher librarian I can hold critical literacy information classes about use of data, privacy, and the prevalence of third party tracking software. With this crucial knowledge, students will be able to take control over their user privacy online (Marino, 2021).

References

Crocco, M.S., Segall, A., Halvorsen, A.L., Stamm, a., & Jacobsen, R. (2020). “It’s not like they’re selling your data to dangerous people”: Internet privacy, teens, and (non-controversial public issues. Journal of Social Studies Research, 44(1), 21-33.

Marino, B. (2021). Privacy concerns and the prevalence of third-party tracking cookies on ARL library homepages. Reference Services Review, 49(2), 115-131

Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Right for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Public Affairs. NY

After reading the articles above, write a post of 400 words that considers one advantage of the use of either virtual or augmented reality, and one disadvantage. Discuss in relation to a library or information organisation that you are familiar with.

There are multiple advantages in using virtual and augmented reality objects in education (Dahya et al., 2021), and these new applications offer an invaluable opportunity to teach school curricula through experiential learning (Hannah et al., 2019). A case in point is the use of augmented reality to engage children with English writer David Almond’s Seven Stories, through immersive experiences of magic realism described in his literary works (Reynolds et al., 2020).

At my school, one of the Humanities assessment tasks in Year 7 consists of creating a guided virtual tour on Google Earth of the novel Once by Morris Gleitzman. The students have to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the geography of Poland and its relevance in the novel by mapping out the journey of the main character using Google Earth digital tools. In order to maximise the learning potential of this task, the Humanities teacher, with the help of the teacher librarian, can incorporate Google Earth virtual reality software to the teaching of this unit. The sense of presence (Zote, 2021) and interactive quality facilitated by virtual reality will allow the students to not only immerse themselves in the physical setting of the novel, but also engage emotionally with the experiences of the main character, who was an innocent victim of religious persecution during World War II (Dahya et al., 2021). This connects to another positive outcome of virtual reality, which is the building of empathy for others and ‘embodied cognition’ through walking in someone else’s shoes (Dahya et al., p. 3, 2021). The teacher librarian can collaborate with subject teachers in the design of units of work that explore virtual and augmented reality technologies, for example in History and Social Sciences curriculum delivery (Hannah et al, 2019).

It is the responsibility of the school library to organise, catalogue and make accessible to students and teachers, learning resources that support the school curriculum. Virtual reality collections present multiple challenges in terms of controlling and defining the provenance and quality of the items found on the Internet (Hannah et al., 2019). The librarian needs to ensure that the virtual reality resources are accurate and contribute to enhanced learning outcomes, and this is no easy task considering the plethora of materials that can be downloaded from the Internet, which are often of unspecified intellectual property (Hannah et al., 2019). The task of collecting and curating virtual reality materials will contribute to increasing the already stretched workload of the teacher librarian, who may need to acquire new skills in how to maximise the use of virtual reality in the library learning programs. Despite the many hurdles to be overcome with such cutting-edge technology, the potential benefits of using virtual reality in education are immense (Hannah et al., 2019; Reynolds et al., 2020).

References