Social Media

Social media networks have been becoming increasingly more popular in the 21st Century, with both adults and children. One social network, in particular, that has become the next best thing from MySpace, is Facebook. Back about 6 years ago, MySpace was the new best social media website for adults and children to use. I personally remember thinking it was so cool to have my own profile page, showcase music and write on friend's pages, back when I was in middle school, on MySpace. It is now becoming apparent that teachers are in search for finding the next best material, tool or idea for implementation within instruction, to the vast amount of diverse students and learners within every single classroom that a teacher will have. This increasing phenomenon of Facebook has become this next best instructional tool, within the classroom, that several teachers are beginning to adapt to.
I personally believe that using Facebook as part of an instructional tool, in the classroom, within limits, is a great idea. But before the topic of using this social networking website is even brought into discussion within the classroom or home (if student doesn't already have a Facebook account), the teacher must be aware of some negative aspects of having the students using the computer for much of their schoolwork, especially a social networking site, that several individuals are on, all around the world. It is important to make the students aware of "online appropriate behavior". "The educators we have spoken to have told us that developing a culture of compassion within the physical walls of their school during the school day sets the expectation for a culture of compassion to be exhibited by students in their online associations outside of school (Phillips, Baird, Fogg)." This type of compassion to be exemplified with school, is especially important to help rid of cyberbullying, one of the number one risk factors of students getting more active online, particularly Facebook. "According to www.cyberbully.org, "Cyberbullying is sending or posting harmful or cruel text or images using the Internet or other digital communication devices." Cyberbully.org is devoted to mobilizing educators, parents, students, and others to combat online social cruelty (Poole)." Not only is it important for teachers to provide examples inside school to avoid bullying and cyberbullying, teachers should also make great strides to make students aware of specific predators on the Internet, that may not be who you think they are, and be careful what you are posting and who you are sharing your posts and information with. Lastly, I believe it is especially crucial for teachers to be aware of when students are on the computers within school. "While students are working online in a classroom/lab environment, the teacher should be alert and always in a position to know what students are up to at their stations. Students won't try to get away with things if they know they're likely to get caught (Poole)." This is also important to monitor at home, because students will also not be as likely to get away with things if they know they will get
caught. The most effective ways in which to apply "digital citizenship" is, by "Conducting yourself in a civil manner in the online world just like you would be expected to behave in offline world, behaving responsibly and compassionately with your online actions and watching out for each other in your online community much like you would in your ‘real world’ neighborhood (Phillips, Baird, Fogg)."

Facebook is especially a good source for students to use, because of the several privacy settings allowed to be applied to it, protecting many things upon it be only viewed among your friends. Some great features of Facebook that would be effective for students to use in and out of school, on Facebook, is the use of the Groups and Pages tools. Groups can be used for projects, in being able to have both students and teachers able to post questions or information within the group, for just the group members to view. It is a great way for students to interact with peers, gain different perspectives on topics and ideas, outside of the classroom, when working on projects or homework, at home. Along this topic of Groups, Pages are an also a great feature of Facebook, for students to be able to share great topics for a particular project. For example, if a project was on rainforests, students may post different liked pages on the topic of rainforests, maybe different animals found in forests, or climates in rainforests for the whole group of students to see. It is also a way a teacher can assess students on the act of finding research. So, unlike Sarah Stewart's view of Facebook for teacher's use with students, I don't agree with this following statement she made: "... But I am extremely concerned that educators think that Facebook will cure all their problems and suddenly make them better teachers (Stewart)." In no way do I believe that Facebook is going to cure all my problems, as a teacher, but that it will be useful in providing more interactive instruction and education. It acts as a great resource for students to use to interact with classmates and the teacher for assistance and working together on different assignments, through transferring ideas and information.
Some specific ways in which I would be able to use Facebook with my students by, for example, if the class was currently learning about fractions, in math, the teacher could share videos on different concepts of fractions, whether it be about multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, mixed numbers, decimals, etc. The teacher could then have students, or groups of students, formed by the Group feature, on Facebook, post reactions or even use the "Hey! Math Challenge" app to have students work through different problems for extra help, or as part of homework. One other way in which Facebook can be effective for teacher instruction, is through each student creating their own character Facebook page, after reading a novel, such as, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The students will be able to list the basic information of their character, according to what they can know and infer from the story, such as hobbies, physical appearance, likes, dislikes and even post comments to other characters that students created to really portray how the character relates to the other characters in the story. Each student in the class will be friends with each other, allowing each student to see what characters their classmates chose and at the end of the assignment, allow the students to collaborate together to write in different comments and additions. These could be provided to different characters to get to know and understand the characters from the story a little better (Venable).