Social Media in the Classroom: Why Ontario Students Are Failing in the Real World

by Jason Beaudry

We have all heard that our students are losing the ability to think for themselves, but what can we do to change that? Written by an educator on the front lines, Social Media in the Why Ontario Students Are Failing in the Real World takes a strong stand on issues such as standardized testing, class sizes, and individual education plans (IEPs), to name but a few of the important challenges facing students, parents, and teachers today.

In taking a passionate stance on hot-topic educational issues of the day, author Jason Beaudry discusses issues and makes recommendations to improve the current education system. He hopes to inspire strong feelings in all readers, as he teaches them a better understanding of how Ontarios youth are ill-prepared for their future.

Beaudry explores how weak reading and writing skills are dangerous to students; how standardized testing does nothing but waste precious time and resources; how investing in more teachers and classroom assistants could change the future; how students can help themselves by becoming independent learners; and how current education fails to train the next generation of skilled workers. He also describes ways for you to be a part of the change.

This study is the product of one dedicated teachers quest to make a real change in Ontarios educational system. He wants nothing more than to improve the ways in which Ontario students are being educated and prepared for life after high school.

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 16, 2012

Reviews

[Risa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that a rating of three stars is probably quite generous: although the author does have some great ideas and makes some very accurate points about crucial educational issues, the text is very poorly-written. There are countless run-on sentences and even more sentence fragments, all of which make the text frustrating to read and, at times, difficult to understand. The author is not, it appears, highly skilled in constructing properly-structured sentences. The book is filled with grammatical errors (the author rarely uses a comma or an apostrophe in a correct, logical, or helpful manner, for example), typos, synonym errors, and even a couple of spelling errors. Highly ironic is the fact that the author devotes a chapter to the values of proofreading work, yet he did not seem to be able to proofread his own text before publishing it. Equally ironic is that, while he has mentioned several times that students should know the difference between words such as their/they're/there and to/too, he makes errors like this himself. By the end of the book, I was fully convinced that the author did not know the difference between then/than. He also misuses a few different words. These types of errors should not be acceptable in a text that continuously preaches the values of increasing literacy skills in Ontario's students. Admittedly, some of these errors could be the fault of an editor, not the author, but the fact remains that the text is not well-written in terms of its use of the English language.
The writer makes several large assumptions and generalizations that are at best inaccurate and at worst highly offensive. He also uses a term he has apparently created, "Oprahfication," more than half a dozen times throughout the text without clearly defining what it means- all a reader knows is that it has something to do with people doing what they want in order to please themselves. I am also unclear as to why the term "social media" is in the title when, really, the majority of the book is not ABOUT social media in classes- it is largely just about what is wrong with the education system. All in all, this book was not what I expected. I was disappointed with it, and I am not sure at this point if I would recommend it to anyone else. The author does have some undeniable points about our Ontario classrooms, and he also has some great ideas. I do not agree with everything he said, but he is clearly passionate about his career and the system in which he works. The fact remains, though, that many of the author's important points were lost (or rather buried) among the grammatical errors and the poorly-written text.