Is Social Networking an Advantage or a Disadvantage in the Classroom?

A common question is whether children at the middle school age or sometimes even younger should be able to use social media or not. In some schools, principals support it, but in others, they strongly discourage it. In many schools, they focus on the children being able to use social media in the classroom to help the students connect and learn, but the schools don’t see all the drama and negative effects of children using social media. In my Digital Literacy class, we recently had an online twitter chat about this topic using #bhsdigcit after we watched this video on one principal’s perspective. Here are some of the questions with my personal answers.

Image credit: Securedge networks.

Students should be able to be involved in social networking because it is an awesome way to communicate with other students and teachers in the classroom and an awesome way to spread ideas to one another.Schools and parents should always keep an eye out for gossip and cyberbullying on the internet, but I don’t think there is a specific solution to making sure students use it responsibly, because at the end of the day, they’re going to say what they want. But, if society treated people online as they do in person, I think social networking would be a much safer place. As a high school student I can make sure I am only using social networking to leave myself a positive digital footprint, rather than a negative one. Sometimes it can be hard to ignore all of the bad things online, but I know that I’m benefiting myself and everyone around me by not getting involved. Students can share ideas with their classmates and teachers as well as respectfully disagree with them without hurting anyone on social media.  The networking part of social networking is where all of the educational purposes take place, but even though the social side can be filled with drama, for the most part, it is used for communication and sharing ideas with one another. I think the two sides are equally important because a well functioning social network needs the social as well as the networking aspects to function as a well-rounded society. I would suggest that every school administration should use social networking because it is a great advantage in the classroom and it makes learning more fun and modern for the students! What do you think?