Social Networking In Schools

Reported on Huffington post

In this dig­i­tal world, oppor­tu­ni­ties for edu­ca­tion are avail­able like never before. Though teach­ers using online tools are empow­er­ing stu­dents take part in their edu­ca­tion, they may also expose them to inap­pro­pri­ate mate­r­ial, sex­ual preda­tors, and bul­ly­ing and harass­ment by peers.

Teach­ers who are not care­ful with their use of the sites can fall into inap­pro­pri­ate rela­tion­ships with stu­dents or pub­li­cize pho­tos and infor­ma­tion they believed were kept pri­vate. For these rea­sons, crit­ics are call­ing for reg­u­la­tion and for remov­ing social net­work­ing from class­rooms — despite the pos­i­tive affects they have on stu­dents and the essen­tial tools they pro­vide for edu­ca­tion in today’s dig­i­tal climate.

The pos­i­tive effects of social net­work­ing sites in edu­ca­tion are pro­found. Accord­ing to a study con­ducted by the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota on stu­dent use of social media, stu­dents who are already engag­ing in social net­work­ing could ben­e­fit from incor­po­rat­ing it into curriculum.

Chris­tine Green­how, who was the prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor in a study, elab­o­rated on the impact social net­work­ing could have on education.

“By under­stand­ing how stu­dents may be pos­i­tively using these net­work­ing tech­nolo­gies in their daily lives and where the as-yet-unrecognized edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties are, we can help make schools even more rel­e­vant, con­nected, and mean­ing­ful to kids.”

Through uti­liz­ing teach­ing tech­niques that incor­po­rate social media, teach­ers are able to increase stu­dents’ engage­ment in their edu­ca­tion, increase tech­no­log­i­cal pro­fi­ciency, con­tribute to a greater sense of col­lab­o­ra­tion in the class­room, and build bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills.

A Mash­able arti­cle titled, The Case For Social Media in Schools, also details sev­eral rea­sons for advo­cat­ing the use of social net­work­ing in the class­room and pro­vides a real exam­ple of how it is affect­ing edu­ca­tion in a pos­i­tive way.

“A year after sev­enth grade teacher Eliz­a­beth Del­matoff started a pilot social media pro­gram in her Port­land, Ore­gon class­room, 20 per­cent of stu­dents school-wide were com­plet­ing extra assign­ments for no credit, grades had gone up more than 50 per­cent, and chronic absen­teeism was reduced by more than a third.”

Karen Cator, from the U.S. Dept. of Edu­ca­tion, in an online ques­tion and answer series fea­tured onedutopia.org also com­mented on the poten­tial of social net­work­ing to improve the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion system.

“Think about not only incor­po­rat­ing tech­nol­ogy into your lessons, but cre­at­ing more and more com­pelling assign­ments so that 21st cen­tury skills, the kinds of things stu­dents will have to develop in terms of crit­i­cal think­ing, prob­lem solv­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion, global par­tic­i­pa­tion — that these are incor­po­rated into assign­ments. The best spaces will incor­po­rate social media, and inter­act­ing with others. ”