Article Summary
Wade's (n.d.) article explores the impacts of social networking on K-college students both in and outside of school. Social networking sites empower students to engage in productive activities, such as finding an internship, sharing success stories/strategies to overcoming obstacles relevant to their peers (e.g.: repaying student loans), and collaborating with others around the world. Social networking sites also allow administrators to strengthen their school community. Through running social media pages for the school, parents, teachers, administrators, and students stay connected to current events relevant to the school community. Additionally, these sites give administrators chances to provide more options for parents to participate in school events. Allowing parents the option to attend meetings virtually enables a wider variety of parents to participate, including those who have obligations that would not allow them to attend meetings in person.
Despite some hesitation about the distractibility of students when they use social networking sites during the school day, social networking sites can be advantageous to students as a collaboration and organizational tool. Learning management systems (LMS), like Moodle and Blackboard, have been prevalent in classrooms for more than ten years. Wade (n.d.) argued that the utilization of such LMSs will eventually transition into a wider use of social networking sites in classrooms. Students generally have a positive reaction towards a teacher's decision to use social networking sites in their instruction, as the sites allow students more options to share their thoughts about academic topics using platforms with which they are most comfortable. This article quotes Professor Carla Dawson from the Catholic University of Cordoba, who states that the technological trends of today become the "standard" form of communication tomorrow and stresses that schools need to adapt these modern forms of communication into their instruction in order to make instruction most relevant to the students.
a) Why do you consider this to be an example of ways in which new media and technologies can positively contribute to society?
The information in this article rings true to my observations regarding the use of social networking tools, particularly in social networking tools' ability to strengthen parent/teacher/administrator relationships. My current principal is a strong proponent for the use of new media to promote the school, and, under her leadership, our school began and maintains active Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts. My principal encourages teachers to submit pictures of classroom activities in order to promote our school and give parents and potential families a glimpse into all that we have to offer. Current parents, alumni, older current students, our Diocesan school board, and other Diocesan schools interact with posts the most frequently, which helps to promote the school to the general public. The social media accounts also greatly help in communicating urgent messages, like sudden school cancelations or reminders about PTO meetings or dress-down days.
The middle school teachers at my school have used two different LMSs in my seven-year run: During my first year, the 1:1 iPad initiative in the middle school was new, and we used Showbie as an online dropbox for students to submit work and teachers to quickly grade that work. Showbie also offered students and teachers the ability to exchange messages about assignments, as students could leave a comment in a work folder, and teachers could respond outside of school hours, which helped absent or confused students. After the pandemic hit, our Diocese switched over to Schoology, which is an LMS that offered many more options, including the ability to conduct video conferences, create discussion boards and polls, and conduct assessments online. Both of these LMSs provide(d) students with a tool in which they could stay organized with their work and upcoming tests and quizzes, ask questions to teachers, and engage in educational discussions with one another. These LMSs have many of the same characteristics as social networking sites that students use daily, except the LMSs are regulated by teachers, so students only use them as an academic tool. This allows students to learn how to effectively communicate via a digital tool so that they may some day take some of the communication and digital citizenship skills they have learned while using features of the LMS and apply them to the social networking tools that they use in their everyday lives.
b) What challenges are encountered in such contexts?
Middle schoolers are not always on task when they have a device. Even with our firewalls in place, students have the skills necessary to access blocked content. Many students are extremely tech savvy and know how to circumvent the security settings, allowing them unrestricted access to the Internet. Some students show signs of having an addiction to the iPad, as they constantly use a device at home and cannot seem to peel themselves away from the device even after a teacher instructs them to shut the iPad multiple times. We, as teachers, have to be proactive about setting boundaries within our classrooms regarding when a student can use their device and strategizing about how we can best monitor their activity/iPad usage while they are in our classroom while still delivering our instruction.
The one challenge I have observed with our use of social media is the fact that social media coverage of the school can be political in nature, as some parents deem that certain students are always making an appearance in pictures on our social media sites, while their kid rarely does. The fact of the matter is that some teachers habitually take many pictures and others deem frequent picture taking to be a waste of time or an interruption to their instruction, so the teachers who run our social media accounts do their best to make sure that the accounts have representation of all grade levels and a variety of the activities that we run.
Overall, the benefits of using social networking in K-12 or K-college settings outweigh the challenges, and I look forward to seeing how schools will continue to use social networking tools in the future.
Reference
Wade, L. (n.d.). How social media is reshaping today's education system. Center for Social Impact Communication. Retrieved February 12, 2022, from https://csic.georgetown.edu/magazine/social-media-reshaping-todays-education-system/
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