Social Media, New Ideas, and Moving Forward

(novarecoverycenter.com)

I still believe social media is an excellent tool for learning and should be utilized to a certain extent in every classroom—that limit being students must also be dedicated and committed stake-holders in class discussion, which means just as much face-to-face interaction. It has been so nice having technology resources in the classroom because students are more excited, engaged, and willing to contribute, no matter their ability level.

While I do not have any children of my own, I do feel that by reading my classmates posts and other articles for parents and children safety online, I would offer this advice: don’t try to over-control. Our kids need their friends and sometimes for those who feel alone, can find others like themselves online to talk to, find support, and confide in. The important part is allowing them to forge their own way in a manner that is ethical, safe, and will not negatively represent them in any way. Eventually, when I have kids, I want to do as Jennifer Smith suggests, “Children who are taught early on how to digest and use social media in a healthy way are children who can be more likely to use it responsibly in the future.” By educating your children and taking the time to show them both the positive and negative elements of the internet, the more likely they are to be open about sharing with you, and possibly, letting you share and partake in their online network(s).

It definitely depends on what age my students are, acknowledging my experience both at the secondary and primary levels, because when students are middle-school ages and above, then they are cognitively more capable to think critically about the content they are consuming. The process of using technology with children in the lower age ranges need a lot of more handholding when exposing them to new software and learning applications, but also nuancing that learning with something non tech-related… For example, my school teaches kids coding at very early ages (starting in 1^st grade), so there is a lesson where they cut out arrows and symbols to demonstrate the direction they would have to travel in order to get to a desired object, which helped them conceptualize the way the little BeeBot robots would move based on the “code” they build for it. 

We have very useful tools available to us in the tech world, but we cannot lose touch with the real world. As the famous Spiderman quote goes... "with great power, comes great responsibility," so we must work to become responsible digital citizens, ourselves, and work tirelessly to inspire future generations to use tech in a responsible way as well.