School Communities on VKontakte as Part of the Media Learning Environment: Teachers’ Media Competences

Abstract

The article addresses the issue of media competences of school teachers responsible for managing their schools' social media accounts, communities, etc.The new types of communication, instant messengers, social networking websites and online learning platforms place modern education in a very special and sensitive environment with a shortened distance between the communicators, danger of personal or classroom information exposure and risks of damaging the reputation of the educational institution. Consequently, school principals and teachers face a problem of acquiring necessary competences in order to advantageously use their school online communities.We surveyed school employees responsible for managing their schools' virtual accounts and revealed that school teachers do not professionalize their management of social media networks: they neither include it in the sphere of pedagogical competence nor correlate it with journalism. Besides, they feel lack of motivation due to little support from the school administration.We claim that the duty to manage schools' social media pages should be perceived in the context of the media competence theory and include the ability to collect and process information, produce multimedia content, manage creative teams and form social media communities. This activity should be monitored by school principals and duly rewarded.