EDU-SOCIAL ALGORITHM: A METHODOLOGICAL MODEL FOR USING SMARTPHONES AND INSTAGRAM IN GENERATION ALPHA’S EDUCATION THROUGH A COMMUNITY OF VIRTUAL PRACTICES

The Edu-social Algorithm research project aims to construct a micro-pedagogical, experimental, digital research action to create a methodological model using the functions and algorithms found in social media used by Generation Alpha (specifically Instagram). The project is the manifestation of an explorative research path seeking to alter the algorithms that form the basis of all the major platforms in current cyberspace, and in “Big Tech”. This alteration is possible through the development of a community of virtual practice, consisting of students and faculty working within Instagram through an interactive approach, to take pedagogical advantage of their mobile phones and apps. The qualitative results show a series of media-educational content evidencing the pedagogical potential of the social media platform Instagram, and the possibility of reproducing the developed methodological model. The relationships between digital education, social media, and active learning are the prevalent components of this work. Along with these main aspects, this research will also treat the relationship between educational reciprocity and the ownership of knowledge, though the goal of the research action is not only to create a digital methodological model, but a community of virtual practices founded on the approach derived by the didactic strategies intrinsic to the Edu-social Algorithm. The practical aspect of this research involves a target group of classes in the final year of middle schools, reaching a total of 98 students and 57 teaching faculty, participating in the Edu-social Algorithm across seven classrooms in three different schools in Palermo (Italy). The students in the experimental classrooms showed, compared with the control classrooms which followed a traditional model, the possibility of learning through social media and improving one’s own scholastic performance, intentionally leaving smartphones on in the classroom, when used in conjunction with educational strategies designed for healthy smartphone use in teaching and learning.