Social Media -Smart Phone or Dumb Phone?

Target group: 15/16y-olds

Topic: Social media

Target task: Research and discuss a hypothesis

regarding Social Media taking into account the
risks and opportunities!
DAY 1
Sub-task: Think about your use of Social Media!
1. Introduction Pt.1: Smartphone prompt
Rather than asking students to put away their phones in the beginning of the
lesson, he/she asks them to take them out and asks them
-

when they have used it for the last time

when they use it for the first time during the day
when they use it for the last time of the day
The students are asked to discuss what they use their Smartphones for
(communication, research, recreation,...) teacher writes those down in a
mindmap on the blackboard
2. Introduction Pt.2:
In pairs of two, the students get one hypothesis to work on, like the following
examples:
"Social media is the downfall of meaningful communication"
"Social media will transform healthcare."
"Social media increases the risk of harm of minors."
"Social media leads to oversharing."
Social media leads to wasting time.
etc. They are asked to think about those hypotheses individually and take some
notes regarding their knowledge/opinion over these topics.
3. Introduction Pt.3:
Homework: The students then work with the vocabulary app to have a linguistic
basis for discussing topics related to Social Media

DAY 2
Sub-task: Research a hypothesis regarding social media!
4. Introduction Pt. 4:
Quick discussion about progress + what will be happening today. Students will
be asked to research and discuss their hypotheses with their telecollaboration
partners and presenting their results in front of the class in the end
5. Work Phase Pt. 1:
The student pairs get in touch with the telecollaborative group (group of two as
well) that has gotten the same statement. They are asked to talk about their
usage of Social Media and discuss their hypotheses.
6. Work Phase Pt. 2:
The teacher gives a brief overview about how the groups can structure their
presentation
teacher gives suggestions about the structure of the presentation
-

students can choose wether they name all the cons first and then all the pros or
the other way round or they could decide on a different structure, e.g. one in
which they always name one advantage and one disadvantage of social media at

the same time

teacher shows some webpages that have useful statistics, e.g. destatis.de/EN
students can look for own sources and facts on the internet to support their

arguments
> this is mandatory because students should find proof for what they claim since

a good debate needs hard facts to support your arguments

teacher sends everybody a link to a webside with useful expressions for a
debate/for presenting their arguments: http://www.smart-words.org/linkingwords/transition-words.html
7. Work Phase Pt. 3:
Students use the rest of the lesson to work on their presentations ( they can
choose to support their arguments with pictures in a Prezi or Power Point
Presentation). The students can finish off their presentations at home.

DAY 3
Sub-task: Present your results together with your partner!

8. Conclusion Pt. 1:
Set up a videoconference (in both courses, e.g. in Poland and in Germany) and
show it on the wall together with the presentations. The students switch with
their partners for different parts and both courses watch the presentations
simultaneously.
9. Conclusion Pt. 2:
Students can use the rest of the lesson (and time at home, if they need the time)
to formulate 5 guidelines for the use of Social Media and pin them up on Padlet
for everybody to look at.