New platform content: ‘Social Media Chat’ Island learning module

Persona Life Skills e-learning now includes a new Island learning module, 'Social media Chat', in which students learn social-emotional life skills to help make social media a positive space.

9-Apr-21

By Dr Leila Khouja Walker, Chief Product Officer

In the Persona Life Skills social-emotional e-learning platform, 'Social Media Chat' is a new Island learning module where students learn how to make social media a positive space. 

Students are taken on a journey of social media scenarios to consider how they and others behave and communicate in chat areas of social media, reflecting on where misunderstanding could happen, and how they might reduce conflict.

Questions and activities in this Island help students develop three social-emotional life skills, through a personality insights lens:

• Processing information – taking the time to consider what someone might be trying to tell me
• Writing informally – using appropriate language and tone, when writing informally, eg. writing a text message
• Managing feelings – being aware of a range of emotions and managing how they impact me and others

In the 'Get Your Bearings' warm-up, students are asked to consider how they use and react in social media chat spaces. Do they consider how friends might perceive a group message differently? Have they ever received a chat message and learnt afterwards they had taken the message to mean something different from what the sender had intended?

In the 'Explore' knowledge acquisition section, students start to identify communication and behaviour patterns associated with different personality styles, and consider how best to communicate with different friends using social media chat areas.

As students reach the 'Viewpoint' plenary at the end of the Island, they are asked to reflect on their learning. They put into practice learning from the activities, and draft chat messages they feel will be perceived most positively by friends with various mixes of personality styles.

Social Media Chat is part of the Discovery Islands curriculum – the Persona Life Skills life challenge learning modules, available with a subscription. 

Persona Education offers free access to its Persona Life Skills e-learning platform for secondary schools and colleges interested in developing their students’ social-emotional life skills, to boost wellbeing and employability. To request a live demo of the platform please get in touch – we would love to talk to you!

About the author: Dr Leila Khouja Walker has been working in the education sector for 25 years. An ex-teacher and pastoral deputy head, she is now a respected edtech and pedagogy thought leader, leading development of the personality insights life skills e-learning app Persona Life Skills, at the Bristol based edtech company Persona Education Ltd. www.persona-life.com