I have been using Facebook for awhile to keep in touch with relatives and old high school friends. It is a quick and easy way to keep up with our busy lives.
I also signed up for a Twitter account. Struggling with that still. I can seem to create posts but am having difficulty figuring out how to follow others.
I like the quick and easy way we can catch up with each others lives and share photos. I am concerned about the content that sometimes seems to appear from others. I feel it could easily be abused.
Our students have been trained and expect instant gratification and results. Social media contributes to that. The computer gives our students instant information. That can be great when you want them to complete projects in such a short amount of time. It can also be a problem due to the fact that they have access to information that may or may not be correct. Students have to be careful what they perceive as true when dealing with social media and the world wide web.
I can see myself using a blog to get the students to share insight in what they have learned for the day and answering higher level questions about the objectives. One of the blogs had students in teams and each was reponible for posting to the blog on certain days. They gave a short version of the lesson learned with examples and the daily assignment. I think this would be a great tool for teachers to use to communicate with asbent students as well as parents. I hope that our district comes up with a plan to make technology available for this use.
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I couldn't agree more with your statement about how students have to exercise caution regarding the truth of what they read online. And I think that's going to be one of our biggest responsibilities in education in the coming years--teaching students to critically evaluate the information they find online or share via social media.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that there's a certain amount of concern that many educators feel regarding sites like Facebook. Students (and adults) can easily post photos, statements, or videos without necessarily realizing the fallout that their actions might cause. I think what's really interesting is that teachers (for the most part) have little trouble distinguishing between their personal and professiona lives; however, for kids, that line doesn't seem to exist as strongly. What happens to them at school and what happens to them online are one and the same. It will be interesting to see how this integration of online interaction will change the way people relate to one another.
Excellent points! Thing 3 complete!