1. How can/Should social media be used to help you develop/collaborate/communicate as a professional? What are the critical issues to consider?
2. What would you do if you were to come across an inappropriate post made by one of your students outside of the school. Do you address the post and, if so, how? Whom do you involve in the conversations? What considerations must you make in determining your course of action? Social media is all the rage with 9/10 students using various forms of social media daily. 76% of students in high school have an account and are using Instagram and 45% are using Facebook already (Benmar, K 2015). Anything is possible when it come to technology and creating a culture around the use of technology, but it will take time and will need to have systems set in place with a unified goal mission statement. As a culture we have become addicted to technology that is within a foot of us at all times. The companies design it that way, so why not use it to connect with students that are always on their phones and use it for education instead of just cat memes and Hollywood? Technology has a use and a purpose to give abilities to communicate, collaborate professionally or academically and develop relationships with people that are near or far. The things to consider are that the technology has moved at such a rapid speed that the socially acceptable culture has not been properly trained or caught up to what those norms are. People have the ability to shoot off Tweets and social media messages when they are under the influence, angry or just plain uneducated statements whenever they want and is usually considered freedom of speech and does not set a great example for the youth in our country. Living in a time with such a litigious society makes many teachers fearful of introducing technology into the classroom because of parents and families that hold such tight restrictions on their families and have low incomes and do no have such money to spend on expensive devices and pay for wifi in their homes for homework or long term projects. I have been in a situation where I saw a post from my teenage god daughter where she was drinking from a keg and partying with friends, cussing, making rude comments and did not show her in her best light while she was in high school. Her mom is my best friend and as a friend knowing that the mom is not on Facebook or monitoring her in any way I felt obligated to let her know what was happening with her daughter online. I let the mom know that she should know her audience and who else might be seeing these posts that she is unaware of. She was shocked and embarrassed and said that she would talk to her. That day the daughter unfriended me and my girlfriend and I never talked about it again. Any time it came up my friend diverted the conversation to something else and would not discuss it. It did not ruin my relationship with the mom, but did clearly change the dynamics of what we could and would not discuss. I think that there needs to be more classes for parents on how to keep track of what our kids are doing on the internet and what kind of impact they are making in the world. Taking technology into the classrooms needs to be done with a systematic approach with components of digital citizenship and digital media awareness in place before it can truly be effective without major ramifications and personal liability.
2 Comments
Jennifer Perkins
3/10/2019 12:53:57 pm
I agree with what you wrote about the need to have systems set in place before students can use social media in the classroom. Once clear guidelines and consequences are presented and implemented, then the use of social media can take place. I like what you wrote about the benefit of social media connecting us to people across different locations. This reminds me of our co-worker who set up a Skype session with a classroom located across the country after Global School Play Day. This allowed for students to interact, reflect, and ask questions with one another. This type of collaboration and communication would not have been possible without technology and the connections found on social media!
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Caitlin Mitchell
3/12/2019 12:10:20 pm
We really do live in a time where social media has become a tool to blurt hate filled statements and drunken rants to the general public...and to think...when these kids make more decisions in public its not just the people who they are with who know about it...its being uploaded to snapchat, facebook and instagram seconds after it happens. I think that teaching kids that its important to use but not abuse our first amendment rights is so important.
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