Michael Butler's List: TCEA

• Teenagers participate in social networking sites for a variety of reasons.  It is a way to keep in contact with friends, to exchange pictures or to engage in a wide range of other social activities.
• Concerns that schools and parents seem to have about social networking is that students will engage in inappropriate behavior or that social networking sites are dangerous. All of the popular sites attempt to stop inappropriate behavior, but they cannot guarantee complete safety. Recently there have been a couple of sensational cases about predators on the social networks. Because of such cases and because the schools apparently do not value the work students do on social networks, the response of the schools has been to block the social networking sites from students in schools.  Thus, students go to these sites outside of school time or secretly on hand held devices during school hours. Most students go to the sites without the advice or oversight of the teachers.

• If the purpose of education is to produce citizens as argued by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1930, shouldn’t we address issues in society that are central to the activities of our children? Nancy Willard cites three concerns about teens
   being involved in social networking sites:

   
   
  1. the sites are attracting many teens, some of whom are not making good choices.
   
  2. many parents are not paying attention to what their children are posting on the sites.
   
  3. sexual predators — and likely other dangerous strangers — are attracted to places where teens are not making good choices and adults are not paying attention.
• I just joined facebook tonight, so I am not fully versed in its usage. One thing that stood out for me in the article is that the federal government has gotten involved and has restricted its use in schools. As an educator, I can see value in using a mode of communication that has the power and uniqueness of facebook. Most students and adults that I know who are on facebook seem to have an addiction to it. Could that addiction be tapped into to make facebook or online social networks an effective tool in the classroom? Perhaps, but from a practical perspective from a teacher with a full plate, I would answer, no. I do not think that I can use online social networks as an education tool for the following reasons:

• • tom, what about something like google docs in the classroom? I am testing out a similar type program in microsoft and my students love it. they can email each other and me. I made them into groups and can communicate with all or just with one group. It is pretty spifffy. Linda g

      

     

      

     

        

       

     

     

       
     
   
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      Tom Brinkmeyer: 

       

    May 2, 2009 at 9:40 pm

      

    Thanks Linda. Yes, I have experimented with google docs with my students. But is that considered a social network?

• School districts around the nation need to take a proactive approach in training their staff on social networking. Teachers, counselors and administrators alike can then educate students about issues/concerns and the benefits with this form of communication. By not allowing students to use social networking sites in the classroom as an educational tool, we are denying them the opportunity to collaborate with others and for them to grow intellectually from a global perspective.

   

  In a health education course a unit on sex education is part of the curriculum. During this unit birth control options and varies sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s) are discussed. If we failed to educate our students on these topics we would be doing them a disservice as a percent of the high school population are sexually active or will be by the time they graduate. For those who think, “if we don’t talk about it then they won’t do it” is being very naïve. By giving our future generation information on sex education and educating them on social networking we are giving them the knowledge-base to make informed intelligent decisions instead of possibly becoming a negative statistic.

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• Similar to the instruction that we provide children about appropriate face-to-face communication with strangers, we must teach Internet safety about communicating with strangers on the Internet.
• It is important to start teaching safety to young children so that teenagers are aware of being safe when they begin using social networking sites. When using social networking sites, parents should make it their business to talk with their child about privacy settings. Many websites display information contained on a user’s profile publicly. Thus, information posted can becomes public knowledge, i.e., if a teenager were to post that they were going to a particular event on Facebook without first enabling the correct privacy settings, theoretically anyone would be able to view that the teenager is attending that event.
• your children if you notice that they become withdrawn from normal family life and seem to spend all of their time on the computer
• your child is quickly switching their computer screen off or to another program when you walk in to their room.

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