As an educational blogger I would love to think, that once I reflected on an issue in education, and addressed it in my blog, everyone would clearly understand the error of their ways and fall in line according to my sage advice. Of course the reform movement would move forward, and I would expect a small plaque would be placed on a bench in front of the lobby of some school commemorating my great contribution to the system that we call education.
That being said, the reality is that many educational bloggers have to continue to reflect and continue to revisit subjects that are like festering sores on the body of education. As we move forward in time, we are confronted with new technologies and new ideas that force us to make changes in our lives. If we make no change, we are destined to live in a place that will no longer exist for the majority. The culture moves on leaving some behind. This may be okay for some adults, but it is not okay for the children we are educating for the purpose of not only living in the future, but hopefully thriving. It is always frustrating when answers to problems are so obvious to some, but a large number still don’t get it.
With that in mind, I am again writing about a subject that continually pops up in media, wherever media may be these days. I was prompted to write this post when I saw yet another blogger writing on this very same subject, forcing me to again comment, again reflect, and start my own post, again. The post was “When Should We Introduce Social Media?” by Brian Bennet.
As parents and educators, one thing that becomes immediately apparent dealing with kids, is that you cannot control, limit, or stop kids from growing up. It happens, and we must accept it as a fact of life. Along with that growing up, kids adapt to the culture to which they are exposed, and make it their own. There is nothing adults can do about that either. The best adults can do, is to try to prepare kids to make the right decisions and to be critical thinkers in arriving at those decisions. That will prepare their generation for moving forward without the adults’ generation which in reality will be left behind.
Unless we are Luddites,we have no chance of stopping the future development of Technology and all that it affects. Technology is a given in the future of our children. Social Media is one such effect of technology. It is here and it is being embraced by young and old. It is accepted and will continue in the future to be with us. We can debate its effect on society, its merits, its pitfalls, and its relevance, but we can’t ignore it, hoping that it will go away. The same can be said of most technology. If we can’t control it, we must certainly learn and teach how to deal with it. Blinders may work well on horses, but they look silly on people.
What individuals do on the internet, stays on the internet for the entire world to see. This is referred to as a digital footprint. Everyone should Google themselves to determine their footprint. Most people began leaving their footprints as they became involved with social media. They made that choice as adults. In this post however, I am talking about kids. Kids today begin leaving their Digital footprints on the internet at birth. Let that sink in, AT BIRTH! “You are crazy, how can that be?” you may ask. The proud parents of any new-born will predictably announce, for all to see, by the essential announcement tool at hand today, Social Media. They continue their storytelling of their never-ending adventure with their children with every new milestone or vacation recorded on Facebook, Twitter or personal Blog.
Of course, you say, but the kid is not involved with Social Media! Not so fast. The toy manufacturers were in this, and saw where it was going, and recognized its potential way before parents and teachers. Webkinz World has over 5 million members and Penguin Club has over 12 million. Surprise! They are Social Media Sites for toddlers and kids under 10. Chances are if your toddler is not a member, he or she knows someone who is, and that someone is telling your toddler all about it. Now here is a ridiculous question: When should we introduce kids to Social Media? A better question must be: When will we begin to teach kids to use Social Media responsibly? If they are social Media aware as toddlers, and they are watching their parents and siblings modeling the use of Social Media at home, the age of introduction is a moot point.
Now that that question has been asked and answered, we need to ask another more important one, so that we may address our responsibility. Social Media is here to stay. It is now, and will continue to be, in the lives of our children. When will we begin to deal with that? Blocking and filtering are just stupid. We will look back at those policies some day and ask; What the hell were we thinking? We need our kids to learn how to be safe, collaborate, interact, critically analyze content and most importantly create content. In order to learn that it must be taught. We do not teach by blocking and filtering. Leave the blinders to the horses.
I live on Long Island, New York. We are fortunate to own a second house on Fire Island. I know what that means to the future of my daughters. I made sure that they could swim before they could walk. I was responsible for their safety and ability to thrive in the environment in which they were to live. I also taught them about Social Media and the internet. They now teach me. When will this senseless debate end?
You won’t stop the debate by simply telling others that you are right. None of us has total understanding as to where the future of social media is heading. We need to learn from the schools and educators who are forward thinking enough to experiment with what is available. You are part of that pack. Keep it up and keep reporting from the front with what you have observed. Feel free to let us know what you think so experiments by others can be informed by your work. I know it can be frustrating when others disagree with what you think you understand about our current waterfront. Keep teaching others to swim and listen to what they have to say when they come back from the frontier.
We’re so lucky to have you leading the charge for optimal change and development in schools. My social network for 4th graders opened in June–so far about 1/4 of the class joined during the summer. They blogged and posted pictures. At parents night during the first week of school (next week) I’ll introduce parents to our closed social media NING site–I’ll prompt them all to join, and they will because most of them work in corporations, hospitals, law offices and other work places where social media and technology is ever present. The children will blog, post, discuss and share all year long–they’ll grow as learners collaboratively with peers, family members and global friends–their learning will be limitless. I will guide their social media use and teach them about this venue in a safe way (a closed network w/teacher and parent oversight), then they’ll be ready to engage with FaceBook and other social media contexts when they reach the magic age of 13. I know this is the right direction to take. I wouldn’t have been able to do this with such skill and confidence if it wasn’t for tremendous ed leaders like you Tom so once again thank you! Please keep the message alive.
I have to agree with @drdouggreen; shouting that you are right will get you no where. But for the record I do agree with you, and I also think we are right, so do a lot of people, but the arrogance (I don’t want to use that word but it seems to fit best) of, effectively, telling people they are ‘wrong’, I can’t agree with that- I wrote an entire blog post against the use of the word, http://nevertoolateforhallelujah.blogspot.com/2011/08/positive-learning.html. The point I tried to make is that telling children they are wrong is wrong, its detrimental and it just creates mass negativity. Educators are screaming for collaboration but won’t collaborate with each other, they just keep throwing ‘wrong’ around. Call me an idealistic fool but I enjoy being positive, and I think positive language and attitude is the only way for education to move forward. We need to be positive about social networking, about ICT in general, but we also need to be positive about each and every point of view; collaborating everything to find a happy medium. It’ll be a huge challenge, but it only takes one motivational person to step up and set the fire; I would be very happy for you to have that bench plaque, but it won’t happen by assuming your right.
[…] Tom Whitby addressed the “current normal” in his latest post, Let’s End The Social Media Debate. He said it great here. Unless we are Luddites,we have no chance of stopping the future development […]
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One of the high schools in my district banned their teachers from using social media in their classes earlier this week until “clear and strict guidelines” can be placed upon usage. Our district is implementing BYOD this year for the first time, so I facilitated a whole workshop for teachers on using social media in their classes a few weeks ago, which is adding to the frustration of those teachers who were excited by our session and had started to explore this growing tool who now have had to stop completely due to fears from administrators.
In addition, as part of BYOD, students must log into the district network to use their devices, which is so heavily filtered that it is almost not worth using. They have blocked YouTube, many blogs, Wikipedia, Facebook, and today students couldn’t access Twitter. So what was a great new tool for teachers and students to use and explore has at its inception been cut off at the knees.
All that to say, I agree that we need to get over it and move on. While the district made a great decision with BYOD, their fear and mistrust of students and teachers’ abilities to supervise and teach proper usage has limited its usefulness. Until we can overcome these fears and embrace a new era of learning and educational tools/models, our students will suffer and our teachers’ creativity will be limited.
I’m with you, man. Just ranted about that this past week at http://tinyurl.com/unblockTN — running against the headwind with the flag held high.
Bravo!
[…] on the opinions and resources of others. In my bumbling through Twitter I stumbled upon a blog by Tom Whitby “Lets End the Social Media Debate” which I found compelling. It is food for thought and would […]
Great post! We totally agree! Well, not with the filtering part :). I address it more in my latest post – http://blog.lightspeedsystems.com/joel/2011/09/02/get-over-it/