Social Networks

I did not join a social networking site until I came to college and I joined Facebook.  Since a lot of my friends were going to different colleges we found this to be a great way to keep in contact with each other.  We enjoyed looking at each other's photo's so we could actually see what was going on in each other's lives and not just read about it.  Shortly after I got a facebook a lot of my family got one as well, and that was so nice to have another way to keep it touch while I was away at school. As much as I hate to admit it, I might have become addicted to Facebook. It is safe to say I check it more than I do my email.  One of my favorite features is that it tells me when it's my friend's birthdays.  Of course I know my close friend's birthdays, but this makes sure I don't forget antibody's birthday.  Facebook chat is another thing I love, most of the time.  It's great to catch-up with old friends or to just get a homework break from a friend down the hall.  Sometimes I wish I could block some people every now and then that want to chat all the time, but I guess there are pros and cons to everything.

Honestly, I don't think I have a vision for social networking in a 21st Century learning environment.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having the 21st Century skills taught right along with the core knowledge, but since I am going to be an elementary school teacher, I don't know how I feel about my students being on a social network.  21st Century skills are great and I think they are necessary for our students to learn, however, with the 21st Century skills comes living in the 21s century.  Now this might be coming from me watching too much Criminal Minds, but we live in a scary world.  We can't be naive about that when it is dealing with the safety of our kids.  As of right now, the only way I would be for social networking in the classroom is if there was a way to have more control over the kid's pages.  I would want to monitor who can be there friends, and that would only be the people involved in our classroom, maybe the other classes in the same grade, and maybe even the whole school.  But there would have to be some way to make sure no one outside of those involved in the school has access to their pages.  I might sound a little uptight about this, but the only benefit I see from having social networking in the schools is to create a learning community and there are other ways about going about that.  Google offers ways to set that up, and even with that there is an age issue as well.  But there are also sites like Engrade that can also create a learning community.  For me, when it comes to the kids, it's always better safe than sorry.  But I do keep an open mind about this, so if there is a safe way to go about it, I would be all for trying a social networking site in the classroom.