Social Media Reflection

I haven’t completed much research in the past on social networks because I’ve spent my time working at an Elementary School where social networking is not allowed. I’ve also been pretty much blocked from every social media site by my district’s proxy. After reviewing the various sites I understand that many of them collect student information and is probably one reason why they’re blocked. I was really surprised to see that the one social network tool that’s approved in my district is Edmodo, actually collects student data on the basis that the district (and teachers) are giving Edmodo this permission. I highly doubt any teacher understands they are giving this permission and I’m not sure why the district approves this. From here on out I know that I will ALWAYS check the Privacy Policy of any site I use with my students (social networking or not) to ensure that my students information is being protected.

I would like to persue and incorporate more social networking tools with both my teachers and my students. As an educator I use social media to connect, share information, and gather resources. It really is its own professional development tool. I know a lot of teachers don’t use social media so my goal is to get them involved so we can all learn together. I also love the idea of using some of the safe social media sites I found (like eduClipper and Twiducate) to introduce safe social media practices to my elementary students. I’m also unsure of the effectiveness of social media tools in education since I haven’t seen any data. It would be interesting to see if any educators have conducted research case studies on the impacts of social media on student performance.

As I mentioned before I’m really concerned about how we as educators responsibly use technology with our students. For example I think teachers have kids use websites that are inappropriate (collect student information). Also I feel that teachers inappropriately handle student information (either how they store and share it). Just as students need to know how to be safe when using social media, teachers need to know and understand how social media (and other web 2.0 tools) interact with our students. It’s unfortunate when our kids get in “trouble” when accessing content online for things that could have been prevented by the educator, or for things that could have been avoided if the educator had better prepared their students.