Teachers and Facebook: Using Online Groups in classroom Fernando Rezende da Cunha Júnior Bert van Oers Claudia van Kruistum ICO National Fall School 2015 - Utrecht

Brasil?

A land of contrasts São Paulo Countryside

Schools Classrooms with smart boards Classrooms with no windows, no toilets and no access to digital technology

Rationale Developing countries – difficulties for implementing or improving the use of digital media at schools Teachers and students are familiar with Social Networking Sites (SNS) Lack of technical resources and speed tools change (ICQ, Orkut, MSN, Facebook, WhatsApp) Groups on Facebook as an alternative for providing access to digital media.

Objectives [1] to clarify teachers’ perceptions concerning the engagement of students [2] how communication between teacher/students is influenced during the process of using such groups. [3] how teachers improve their use of digital technology at schools through the use of online groups.

Theoretical Background Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) Tool mediated activity Implications of cultural and historical contexts for research level of involvement of the actors, the type of rules, and the degrees of freedom Critical Collaborative Research (CCR) All stakeholders as subjects Shared evaluation and reorganization of practices

Research Setting Started in February 2013, with 43 teachers and 500 students 5 teachers with groups of students 385 students (secondary education) Voluntary participation No use of schools’ resources (computers)

Groups overview Curricular Subject Teacher’s age   Curricular Subject Teacher’s age Teacher’s experience (in years) Location of the school Classes per week Number of students Number of classrooms in the group Grade (United States as reference) G1-Biology Biology 26 5 Minas Gerais 2 22 1 10 G2-Sciences Sciences 30 8 220 7 8-9 G3-History History 33 G4-English English as foreign language 9 São Paulo 77 3 12 G5-Portuguese Portuguese 34 6 11-12

Data sources Posts from the groups of teacher/students Online questionnaire Chat logs with the teachers

Conclusions teachers are aware of an improvement of their students, with more collaboration and interest for the topics studied use of groups on Facebook improved communication between teacher/students teachers use the groups for many different purposes

Thank you frezendedacunhajunior@vu.nl fernandorcjr.wordpress.com