The internet has its good, bad, and ugly face. Social
networking is undeniably a double-edged sword that should be used carefully and
wisely so that students can draw educational benefits from it. So, because our
students come to class with a fairly good knowledge and interest in social technology,
we need to raise their awareness to its advantages and drawbacks.
However, some people would argue that social networking is
just another classroom add-on like the blackboard, the whiteboard, the
CD-player, and all the material that we flood our schools with. Yet, there
exist many legitimate concerns about the use of social networking for
educational purposes.
First, many people are not prepared for it and may get hurt
by these sites. Such harm may come from the disclosure of private personal
information. This can result in blackmail, sexual harassment, defamation of
character, and all kinds of internet bullying.
Second, there is the problem of addiction. Many young people
spend too much time at their computers doing nothing but IAM-ing and playing
games. This may have a detrimental effect on students’ health as well as
distract them from their studies.
Third, young people may gain access to pornographic
material. This might harm them psychologically and push them to act out what
they see and become sexual deviants.
However, because computers and the internet have become an
integral part of most students’ lives, many students today come to school prior
knowledge of internet use. So if we deprive them of such a great learning tool
while almost everyone is using it at home, we may feel belatedly sorry that we
have shortchanged them and have stifled them and limited their horizons. We
need to introduce these young people to the good flip side of social networking
because it will serve them to learn.
Social networking helps students exchange information and
ideas with peers, other students, and teachers, locally and abroad. It is a
powerful tool to learn from different sources because “the best thinking comes from many not one” . It provides the learner with opportunity to select the
information, compare it and thus make knowledge acquisition easier and greater.
Also, this tool makes it easy for young people to connect,
socialize, and make friends with people their age and like-mind from all the
four corners of the earth. It is a way to promote global learning connections
between students worldwide so as to learn about other diverse cultures without
having to cross the borders. This way, students will, hopefully, dispel
misconceptions and develop understanding of others and respect differences.
Besides, in social networking most of the information there
is cost effective or at no cost at all.
No need to travel long distances to get information. No need to buy
expensive books. Everything is only a click away. It can also help defeat the
cruelty of material shortage in many countries, especially the third world. One
or a couple of computers in the classroom – or at school – can make up for a
whole library. It’s a great tool to narrow the divide between the haves and the
have-nots.
The best-selling point of social networking for me is its
ubiquitous aspect. The widespread use of technology and the omnipresence of the
internet have made social networking part of almost every young man’s day.
Wikis, blogs, micro-blogging, and other social technology tools have become the
interest of the new generation in the remotest parts of the world. Added to
this is the fact that wireless and satellite connection is spreading in leaps
and bounds and it will soon make these tools much more affordable and add to
their universality and pervasiveness.
Micro-blogging, for example, has made life easier for many
students. They can write very short paragraphs, comments, messages etc without
being forced to slave away at pages without having much to say. It is also an
effective way to communicate with teachers and other students in short texts.
It, then, saves time and energy and relieves from the anxiety of having to
write a lot.
Our responsibility, then, as teachers is to facilitate the
way our students use social networking. We need to show them the good, the bad,
and the ugly face of social networking. We ought to teach young people how to
use it wisely, ethically, and responsibly. We need to trust them though we have
to check from time to time.
Also, fortunately enough, most micro-blogging tools today
provide us with options to have some control on the users. We can, for example,
control who can get in Twitter with our group and who can’t, if we want to do
so.
More, teachers ought to plan in advance and work out all the
details of the activity so that students get focused and stay on the teachers’
page. Unprepared teachers lose track of what they are doing and give students
the opportunity to misuse the tools.
Eventually, since social networking is imposing itself as a necessary tool in our classrooms we need to get prepared for it. We need to believe that it is like every man-made tool in today’s world; it has two sides. It’s like our cars, our TV, our guns, our cell-phone, and so forth. We have to use them, not overuse or misuse them, or let them use us.
