Teaching Social Networking to Elem. Students

I'm in the process of preparing a presentation for our school's girls day event next week. This years theme is technology. I wanted to present something on social networking. Does anyone have any ideas about presenting cyberbullying and internet safety on social networks? Also, if anyone has any suggestions on social networks for students they have used please share. Thanks for your time and responses.

I know BrainPop has a clip on cyberbulling but I wanted to know if there was anything else exciting out there.

Safiyyah

Tags: Cyberbullying, Networking, Social

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Permalink Reply by Katy Scott on May 1, 2010 at 12:55pm

I love Edmodo. I also recently came across WackWall, but I haven't used it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any resources to share, but I think creating a closed, classroom social network on a site like Edmodo is a really good way to teach kids proper Internet etiquette and safety. These social networks can be monitored by teachers and are a good starter scaffolding for kids, before they get old enough to use sites like Facebook and MySpace.

(If you need ideas for using social networking in the classroom, you can check out a blog post I recently wrote on the subject.)

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Katy Scott on May 1, 2010 at 5:21pm

I'm not sure if this social networking research would be helpful for you, but I just posted it on another thread related to this topic and thought you might be interested:

Creating and Connecting: Research and guidelines on social - and ed... from the National School Boards Association actually provides a section with recommendations for school boards, including, "Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression — but students may learn these lessons better while they’re actually using social networking tools."

Teens and Social Networking in School and Public Libraries by the Young Adult Library Services Association includes a section on how social networking can improve learning, as well info on educating the community about social networking. Here's a quote: "By integrating social networking technologies into educational environments, teens have the opportunity to learn from adults how to be safe and smart when participating in online social networks. They also learn a valuable life skill, as these social networking technologies are tools for communication that are widely used in colleges and in the workplace."

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Kohler on May 5, 2010 at 12:44am

Oh Edmodo is often called the Twitter for education.

The ones I constantly recommend are http://www.cramster.com/ and http://www.evernote.com/.

I also found www.mobl21.com quite interesting, yet to explore.

-K

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Bonsignore on May 3, 2010 at 7:29am

The resources listed here are great. I also think that you might ask the kids to discuss controversies surrounding the proliferation of social networks, such as the one being presented right here in our Classroom2.0 community: http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/nj-principal-asks-parents-t... It would be interesting (and probably enlightening) to hear their opinions.