This has been the topic of discussion for awhile now. Seems like this is all you hear about...at least for me. I think social networking is good, but it can also go the other way.
It is good because people can now keep in touch, easily, with others they may not have kept in touch with without this tool. I personally use facebook. I find that it sometimes becomes the only way that I keep in touch with some people. I just recently went to lunch with a friend of mine from high school. I would not have known some of the things about her that I did if it weren't for facebook. We also got to catch up on others because we both were frequent followers on the site. It was great for us.
It is also a bad thing for some people. This makes it much easier to follow people and see what they are doing, whether it be good things or bad things. I have known some educators that use facebook personally and involve a lot of students in their posts. Being an educator, you have to be careful what you post and who reads them because, as an educator, you are trying to teach students good morals and show them how to be good citizens. This becomes dangerous when you are posting many things for others on your facebook wall.
Overall, social networking can be a good thing. It can also be a great tool for educators. You just need to be careful how it is used and keep in mind the people that will see your site.
I agree that social networks have their pros and cons. Facebook is great, as you pointed out, for keeping in touch, and I do know that some educators choose to use it to keep in touch with their students. As you pointed out, however, it can be easy to slip past the boundaries of professionalism.
ReplyDeleteI do think, though, that social networks aren't going anywhere, and it's important for us to help direct our kids towards responsible use of such media. Perhaps by serving as role models we're better able to accomplish that?
I don't know what the answer to the current social media dilemma is, but I tend to think that any tool that allows us to engage kids is worth thinking about!
Great response; Thing 3 complete!