To be or not to be: Social Networking in the Classroom

February 22, 2010 Aboyd20

Social networking and the number of participants considered “social networkers” is growing every day. Social networking is not just limited to the number of facebook or myspace users, but bloggers and number of wiki accounts as well. In the field of education, we have to start considering how has and will how it WILL affect our future classrooms. Some points to consider include computer and internet access for the students, whether this is at home or at school (when looking at low-funded schools), also how will different types of social networks affect student’s and even teacher’s social skills face-to-face.

Social networking provides students and educators with opportunities that didn’t exist even ten years ago. Now if a student misses a day of school when their paper is due they can just e-mail it in, or if they forgot to write down their homework assignment maybe they can visit the class website or blog to see what it was. Perhaps, students who aren’t as willing to talk in class or contribute to discussions will be more active in discussions on-line. Also, tools such as blogs and wikis (and sometimes facebook as well) eliminates many possibly scheduling conflicts having to do with working on group projects.

Yet, with all these positive uses, social networking has numerous downsides as well. It does enable students to become more comfortable with “virtual” chats verses “real/in-person” conversations, and could possibly hinder their face-to-face social skills. With the number of on-line college classes growing rapidly, professors and students will possibly never see each other in person. Also, (from personal experience) we must be aware of the fact that technology does indeed fail sometimes. Computers crash and websites may be down for maintenance, what do we do when these things happen?! We ultimately may have to rely on our “old-school” ways of research like going to the library or using paper and pencil to write a paper.

My personal stance would be for the use of social networks within the field of education. Not only would it be beneficial in my future classroom for students, but also for teachers. My new favorite social networking site is The English Companion Ning. Teachers are now able to share advice, personal experience, as well as favorite texts and ways to assess students. I think the different ways students can connect using various methods involving social networking would only enhance their academic careers.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to comments via RSS Feed