Social Networking and Equity

National School Boards Association (NSBA) (2007) Creating and connecting: Research and guidelines on online social and educational networking. Fromhttp://www.nsba.org/site/view.asp?CID=63&DID=41340 or Creatingandconnecting.pdf

This article was a very interesting article illustrating a study done by Microsoft, News Corporation, and Verizon. Social Networking in our age among students is so rampant now that it has even come ahead of Television in the amount of time teens spend on activities. But when educators try to connect social networking ot schools, many times it is shut down and heavily barred down. This study showed that a vast majority of students use their social networking for school work as well as for posting, creating, videos and pictures showing the potential for social networking to be used in the classroom for educational purposes. This article also brings up an interesting note about nonconformists. They are adolescents who, “step outside of online safety and behavior rules.” They are heavy users of media and are highly advanced technologically but they may be average or below average academically.    

This article’s main point is why don’t’ we connect the school to the home, get parents and schools involved in the technology of our students by creatively incorporating social networking into our schools and into our children’s lives in a academic way. This article does touch on technological equity in how incorporating more social networking could work for if students don’t have a computer. The do not give a solution to the problem but they do say that it is up to the school to ensure the equity is reached. They also say that in our ever age, more and more homework is requiring the internet and so students are finding ways to be connected to the internet even if they don’t have resources at home.

The interesting thing about this article was with the nonconformist. This sounds exactly like what was discussed in class today that will come up in our book Copyright Clarity. I haven’t read the book yet, but if it is like what I understood today, then there are students out there who are creating and experimenting and shaking the technology world because they can and because that is how they display themselves.

This article gave me more hope for using social networking in the classroom. I used to feel like social networking shouldn’t be used in the classroom but now, with these good arguments the article brought up, I could see myself using some of these sometime. Yes, we do not want to loose the traditional way of handwriting or face-to-face communication, but since our world is quickly turning towards a more online and high speed world, it is important to bring our students up to date and engaged in our culture as it is. At West Hills where I just finished my first module for student teaching, there were two computer labs but students rarely accessed them and can’t even type in 4^th grade. I would like to, when I return there in January, start to incorporate more technology and social networking either through emails or blog correspondence so even if students don’t have access at home, I am still getting them used to these issues that will be a part of their life in middle and high school.