Social Networks have not been a very big part of my professional experience but I am taking this course to change that. I do have a facebook account that I check frequently. I use it more for my personal life. I love catching up with old friends and seeing pictures of friends and family that I would not see otherwise. I feel comfortable using it as a tool to communicate. Though, I am careful who I allow to be a “friend” and make sure that all of my settings are set to private. I believe there are somethings that the world does not have to see. I am excited to make the change from just using a forum for personal use but also professionally. I think that social networks, for me, have a great potential to provide numerous resources that I could use as tools to compliment my teaching style. I could also use social networks to communicate with fellow teachers who have similar goals and who teach similar subjects. Again, this is new to me, but I am extremely excited to embrace it!
I believe that when it comes to our students and my peers there is a great influence, more so with my students. I am constantly hearing about facebook statuses and rumors of facebook. While I think facebook, if used appropriately, can be beneficial, I think I am seeing more negative than positive. I think that there is a correlation between less “person to person” communication skills because they can just say it on facebook. I am also seeing a trend of students being bullied through facebook, while I understand no social network can be perfect, we do need to educate our students on the proper usage and etiquette of these networks. When it comes to my peers, I believe that it is fair to say that at least 50% of my friends have a facebook or twitter account. I see this number growing as more social networks are made available. My boyfriend refuses to set up an account because he likes communicating the old fashion way and that it takes up more time than it saves. I see his side of it, but for me, I enjoy it!
Making sure our students are good digital citizens has become a part of the content for every teacher's class. Being smart about using Facebook and other social networks should not be something we assume. We need be sure the 'etiquette' is there before we introduce them to these networks.
ReplyDelete