Internet and social media generation: unstructured education

If the school does not manage to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT), the latter will be able to integrate education, believes Francois Guité, secondary school English teacher. He is familiar with social media: blog, Twitter, Facebook, online educational resources, he has been present on the web for many years. He recently shared his experience within the framework of the activities of the Regional Consortium for Research in Education (CRRE).

After two years of absence, François Guité is back in his class. He was struck by the fact that more than half of his students now have mobile devices (smartphones, iPods) and that almost all of them have a Facebook profile. According to him, teachers must therefore get rid of their old behaviors and adapt their ideas to the digital context.

However, the lecturer does not give examples of activities to be carried out in class. He prefers “to provoke reflection rather than giving recipes that age badly and that are not adapted to the personality of the teachers. ”Instead, he invites neophytes to create a Twitter or Facebook account and look for resources on the web. Creating, publishing and sharing information is within everyone's reach.

François Guité believes that teachers should use social networks because they are already there anyway: young people talk about school on Facebook. The school must therefore think about its virtual identity before others do it for it. Social networks also make it possible to develop new professional skills more in line with the learning strategies of young people.

Young people born with a mouse in their hands don't have the same connection to technology as those who came before them. They are better equipped and more mobile. They inform themselves when the time comes, since the information is always available and control their virtual world by personalizing their tools. They have a very broad view of intellectual property and are used to being free on the web. They socialize differently and expose their digital identity. In short, they create and they share.

While teachers traditionally gave theory in class and practice at home, François Guité believes that today we must reverse the ways of doing things. “I put all the information I give out in class on my blog so that the students can go and find it on homework. In class, we put ourselves in a project, in action. "

According to the speaker, it is therefore a mistake to ban social networks and mobile phones from schools. This is for him a "lazy solution". “The ban is an admission of failure, proof that we do not know how to use them. "

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