While looking at incorporating social networking in schools, there is lots to consider. As an elementary educator, the first thing that comes to my mind is when it is appropriate to introduce social networking in schools. Many parents struggle with making the decision of when to let their kids make profiles on social networking sites. Social networking has become a normal part of everyday life. Most people log on to social networking sites daily to find out what’s going on in the world, as well as the personal lives of people they know, but at what age should kids be doing this? Fears of parents include cyber-bullying and online predators. The part that schools can play to make parents feel better about these fears are teaching kids to be digital citizens. Being digital citizens includes keeping themselves safe while they’re online, as well as being respectful and responsible online. With the presence of technology and the internet in children’s everyday lives, the sooner they learn digital citizenship, the better. I begin teaching my students about digital citizenship in second grade. My reasoning for this, is the sooner they learn digital citizenship, the more natural it will become to them: it’s just something they've always known and done.
By middle school, most students are already on social networking sites in their personal lives, so introducing it at school at this age just makes sense. Some people fear that by relying more on social networking, kids are losing valuable skills learned through face to face interactions. It’s important that students still work on these skills at school so they are not lost. “A paper released earlier this week by the Brookings Institution addresses how social media, blogs and video games are improving education by increasing access to people and information in various forms, including Twitter feeds, blog posts, videos and books. These tools are also increasing people's ability to share information with networks and contribute their own thoughts.” (Zhao, 2012) By introducing social networking in schools, students are able to access more information, and in result can learn more.
Another thing to factor in is when students move on to higher education, or begin their professional careers after high school, more and more schools and companies have social networking profiles, and network through social networking. “Professional networking, outreach to current and potential students, and school pride were among the reasons listed for engaging in social media.” (Glenn, 2012) If we as educators are making it our goal to have our students be ready for college or careers, we need to make sure that they are able to social network responsibly and effectively. When our students move on from school, it will greatly help them to be able to know how to be on social networks, and that learning should start in our schools.
Resources:
Glenn, D. (2012, February 7). How Well Are Schools Using Social Media? [Infographic]. Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/how-well-are-schools-using-social-media-infographic/90209?red=st
Zhao, E. (2012, April 30). Social Media And Video Games In Classrooms Can Yield ValuableData For Teachers. Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/social-media-and-video-ga_n_1465082.html
I like that you included the importance of introducing digital citizenship early on. This is crucial if a school/district wants to develop a responsible, mindful digital learning community. My fear for using social networking (it's not encouraged in my district to say the least, but I would LOVE to incorporate it) in the upper grades is the potential for boundaries to be crossed. So often people say things online they wouldn't normally say otherwise. I'd be afraid of a student crossing boundaries. But again, if you teach students responsibility and have a zero tolerance policy, I strongly believe social networking can be an incredibly effective tool for student learning and engagement.
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