Social Networking is changing our world in ways never before imagined. The following quotes from Quotesdaddy.com regarding user’s feelings about Facebook illustrate the impact it is having.
“Every single one of you are on my friend list as a result of a conscious decision. I am not only glad to count you as friends but also as family! You can't choose family but... you can choose friends..♥ ♥ ♥ Thankyou for your friendship”
REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING
My learning regarding social networks began at the start of this course. When I started this course I had not used Facebook or any of the other social networking sites at all. My oldest son at university and my grade 12 son along with my wife had a Facebook account but I had not been convinced of my need for it. They had each been using the account for perhaps a year and often my wife would tell me of people we knew that she would be in contact with. I found that she would spend a lot of time on her Facebook account but I was never ever that interested in checking it out. I had heard things about it; like the site had some security issues and you should not be sharing your personal information.
When this course started we were encouraged to try out Facebook and explore what it had to offer. I signed up for an account and have been using it ever since to try to learn as much about it as possible. I recall when I was setting it up I was quite concerned about what information I was displaying about myself and who would be able to see my information. I did not realize that you could see almost anything from almost anyone when on Facebook. You are able to see into pictures of friends of friends etc. so without too much effort you can be looking at pictures or information about complete strangers. I guess I was a bit naïve and thought that it was a lot more “locked down” than that.
I soon found that you could restrict access to all or parts of your profile. I went in and added some information to my profile but not too much as I am still concerned with privacy matters. You can go in anytime and edit your profile easily. I then went in and explored the Privacy Settings area. This allows you to control who can see what. Although this is a very good think and helps protect a person’s privacy there is not a lot of instruction on how to do it and the importance of doing this. I can’t help but wonder how many people even know they can and should do this?
I searched out some friends that I knew were on Facebook and sent them a friend request and they soon replied. Before long I was getting requests to be friends with people that I had known in my past. These ranged from family members I have not seen in a while to friends from high school and former students. My list of friends quickly grew and I was able to explore their sites and pictures. This was a very interesting and enjoyable experience.
I also uploaded a picture for my profile and another one just to explore and learn how this was done. Many of my friends had several albums of pictures that they obviously upload on a regular basis. Soon after events occur you are able to find pictures of it on Facebook.
Another feature I tried out and was not familiar with prior to this was the ability to chat with others that were online. I had some great chats with long lost friends and my son who is away at University.
There are many features that I stumbled across. For example, I was met with a flurry of birthday greetings. It seemed that everyone on Facebook knew it was my birthday and sent greetings my way. Many of my friends were trying out Farmville and encouraged me to join. I even tried this out and have myself a nice little farm started. If you want to see it I think it is open for anyone to look at. Perhaps you could send me a gift. I like chickens but am having trouble getting my shed built. This is kind of a fun little add on but would be a real distraction to some.
Another feature is the groups feature. You can find a group to join with people of like interests for just about anything. If one does not exist you can create your own group. It was real interesting to explore some of the groups that my friends belonged to. One of the groups that I joined was the EDES 501/544 Winter Cohort group for this class. There are 10 members in this group. There have been a few posts but I suspect most of the members are classmates and like me tend to look more than add content.
I also had a couple classmates request to be my friend. We have had a few discussions and shared a mail or two. By the way there is email built into the system as well. Since I use gmail and I am very pleased with it I have not used the Facebook email very much at all.
Another site I explored was the Ning. I went to Ning.com and signed up for an account. I explored the sites there a bit and found that you could join existing Nings on a wide range of subjects. I think that they are much like Facebook groups. You can also create your own Ning if you choose. I did not really “get it” however and have not done much with my Ning account.
PERSONAL LEARNINGS
Facebook and social networking sites in general definitely have a great place in my future personal use. I have enjoyed my experience using Facebook and have found many surprises along the way. Within a day of signing up I was being asked to become friends with a guy that used to be a very close personal friend. He was actually part of our wedding party but has moved to
My son is away at University and I will often find that he is online whenever I sign in. We often have a short chat and stay in touch that way a bit. I also can go into his site and see who he is hanging out with and enjoy keeping up with the happenings of all of his friends. (Not sure if they are happy that I can do this!!)
I found it interesting that my daughter has been following what I am doing in the class. She saw me using Facebook and Farmville in particular and wanted me to help her get an account set up. She is in grade seven and several of her friends have a Facebook account so I agreed to help her set it up as long as I could make sure she was not giving out too much information. When we tried setting it up it would not allow me to create her account. I had used her actual age and they must have an age restriction on the site. This is very effective because it has prevented all of her friends from getting accounts as well. (remember all of her friends had access) In order to get her set up we used a false date for her age so now she has a facebook account that her father monitors closely. It is quite good for her since she is able to communicate and chat with her cousins that live in distant cities. She even has access to it with her ipod. Times are a changing and I don’t think there is anything we can do in education to stop it.
In the Web 2.0 for Schools book, Davies and Merchant (2009) talked about Second Life. I did not have any time to explore this but it is something that I have heard a lot about and I am fascinated with. I can see myself becoming a member of this when my classes are complete and I have some addition time to explore. If any of you have any comments or advise on this I would love to hear from you.
TEACHING AND LEARNING
As we have been trying all of these Web 2.0 tools I have been checking with our e-learning teachers and determining how they are using the tools in our school. They have always been very positive about the web 2.0 tools and are the first to look for ways to incorporate the tools in our classrooms. They are our advocates for technology and argue those that want to prevent, block or stall technology applications in our schools. Even this group very tech savvy web 2.0 allies do not support the use of Facebook in our schools however. I have given the tool a very good try and really struggle myself to see how it can effectively be used in our schools. I do not support blocking it and feel students should have access to it at school but I have not had any good ideas or insights into how to use it in the classroom.
I did a search of journals through the U of A library to try to find pros and cons of using it. I did not find any real good examples of how it can be used in classrooms but found one article arguing for its acceptance in schools at least. Farr (2009) argues the call to prevent social networking sites is not new. He likens it to being similar to preventing Mad magazines, calculators, and other new inventions through the years that have been initially banned or restricted. By not allowing access to technology at schools, education is at risk of becoming antiquated. He lists three reasons why schools and teachers are reluctant to embrace this.
- Afraid of the loss of control
- Concern that not all students will have equal access
- Unfamiliar with the technology and therefore uncomfortable with students using it.
He refers to this YouTube video “What if…?”
On the other side of the issue it is not difficult to find articles and opinions that do not support the use of Facebook and social networking sites in schools. Fodeman (2009) founder of Childrenonline.org says that Facebook is one of the two most popular sites for student’s grades 4- 12 and explains these ten main concerns he sees with its use.
Concerns
- Use a lot of bandwidth
- Takes a lot of time
- False sense of privacy
- Thousands of scams targeting teens in their social networks
- Spyware and Adware concerns result from Facebook add-ons
- Screens act as a moral disconnect from many of our students
- Students have little knowledge about how much they are being marketed to, how their purchasing decisions are being manipulated, how their personal information is being used and how valuable their personal information is.
- Teens are increasingly using telecommunications technologies to avoid difficult face to face conversations.
- More and more children are turning to making friendships online.
- The meaning of the word friend is changing for our students and this change puts them at risk in several ways.
As I read this list I kept thinking that these are the things that I keep hearing over and over. I am torn as I continue to hear more and more negative aspects but then see more and more people using. Just this weekend we saw on the news and messages from our IT department warning of fraud emails trying to get passwords / personal information from you Facebook accounts. We constantly hear stories (urban legends perhaps) of employers checking up on prospective applicant’s Facebook activities before hiring. We need to be careful of what we make public when we are young. It may have a lasting impact.
On the other hand we have seen it become more and more used. Recently we saw it used by major television news networks when
The following quotes from the trailfire on social networking seem to sum it all up.
http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/forum/topics/your-thoughts-on-the-use-of Karon Lippincott “social network used in school should be closed/private. Students should be able to access it from outside of school, but it should be secure. We cannot put our students at risk for predators or any other social ill by foolishly making a school-run social network public. It is a quick and easy means of basic communication...snow days, late starts, sports scores, club reminders, book picks, etc.”
In response to whether teachers should have a Facebook account – “I, personally, see nothing wrong with belonging to Facebook, etc. but we must be prudent with what we post and what we choose to make public. If you cannot manage your FB account to keep your private life private, then you shouldn't have an account.”
And finally from The Blue Skunk blog -
Every website shall remain unblocked until proven to be "harmful to minors."
References:
Davies, J & Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 for schools learning and social participation,
De Groot, J. (2010). Trailfire: Social Networking. http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/trailview/61581
Farr, G.. (2009). Mad Magazine to Facebook: what have we learned? Teacher Librarian, 36(5), 30-32.
Fodeman, D., &
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7025.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment