Social media can be such a blessing. It has allowed individuals to create and be involved in collaborative discourse, share ideas and grow Personal Learning Networks (PLN). Of course with benefits of this extreme interconnectedness follows the pitfalls. Showing yourself in a bad light, over sharing personal information, talking negatively about someone else and using social media to partake in non law-abiding actions are just a few actions that can easily label you in a negative manner. This falls in line with what Gwyneth Jones mentions in her article 6 Ways to Avoid Those Social Media Pitfalls, "As educators, I passionately believe we should use social media to push the positive, celebrate student successes, share resources with our colleagues, and connect with parents and the community." How then do we push the positives aspects of social media while curbing the negative?
Unfortunately, merely telling students about the pitfalls of social media does not always guarantee avoidance. Counter to what Jones discussed in her article, I do believe that connecting with students via social media (I do create a separate account just for this purpose) is not only an effective way to communicate and build rapport but also lets the student know that you are part of their targeted audience. Say for instance I was crafting an email to a close friend of mine and had to cc my supervisor, the email might look differently than if it was just to my friend. I know this because I am well versed in code-switching but these are the skills that we want to instill into our youth. Our students will make mistakes with how they use social media, that is a fact, but having someone there to point out the mistake and help them grow from it leads to learning and understanding. In regards to having been witness to an inappropriate use of social mediaI, this is a surprisingly (or not so surprising) common occurrence. Often times the plan of action is talking with the student privately to make them aware of the action. We have several staff at my site that connect with students using social media so reinforcement from adult to adult helps hold the student accountable. At times we have had to take further action involving law enforcement but this is a rare occurrence. Patrick Larkin in What Do You Do When You See Inappropriate Social Media Posts? brought up some valuable guidelines in dealing with such comments or posts. It is these type of conversations we as a staff seek to have with our students. In our view, these negative posts and comments lend themselves to teachable moments rather than punitive.
5 Comments
Scott Marsden
3/6/2018 12:13:16 pm
Joseph,
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Madeleine O'Rear
3/6/2018 07:05:03 pm
Joseph,
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Stephanie Jones
3/6/2018 09:30:00 pm
I agree with you that social media and technology can be a blessing. For years I have stayed away from giving out my cell phone number to students and not accepting friend requests on social media. Now the time has come to embrace it, even though I now teach younger students. Technology now allows me to safely communicate with students and parents through Remind just as I would with my phone number. Social media may or may be a big part in my student's lives now but it will be in the future.
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Emily Feil
3/6/2018 10:04:40 pm
I love the example of writing an email to a friend with a cc to your supervisor. This would be a great exercise to do with students. It ties in to so many language arts standards: academic language vs. informal speech, considering the audience, etc. The important thing for kids to learn about social media is that there is no such thing as a post that only friends will see.
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Teresa Barron
3/6/2018 10:37:18 pm
Joseph, I agree with you when you say that social media can be a blessing but there are also pitfalls. I think your example about the letter to a friend with the cc to your supervisor would be a great way to introduce to students how they can code switch and avoid making some of those mistakes that can have such a powerful impact in their lives.
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AuthorHello, I'm Joe. Welcome to writings about my thought process throughout the journey of Touro's Innovative Learning Graduate Program. Archives
July 2018
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