Social Networking in Education Noureddine Boutahar

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.

 

East or West Home is Best.

Today is Sunday April 27, 2008. Everyone in Kent State University ILEP group have their eyes riveted on the calendar these days as we count down to the trip back home. I have noticed that everyone is so beyond homesick, tense, and impatient. The days, however, are obstinate and are slow-paced and add to the mountain of homework we have. We have papers to submit, a portfolio to complete, reports to write, posters to make, lesson plans to prepare, presentations to give, and shopping to do to get ready for the trip back home.
It is strange how people even refuse to go out to cultural events. They prefer staying in their rooms, do their assignments, eat, and go to sleep. I enjoy learning about this American diverse culture though I want to go home like I never wanted to go home before.
Before coming to Ohio last January, I had known, from experience, I would be amazed for some time then I would start to get homesick and upset. From previous experience also, I know that once back home I will experience Reverse Culture Shock after the fist few days. I know I will miss many things I am used to and many people I met here. I will miss order, punctuality, smoking-free environment, taking many pictures, buritos at Chipotle restaurant, Jeorge Carlin and a bunch of other stand up comedians…I will be leaving my new home behind, the friends I made, my new family (Linda, Jennifer, and Rose and others), nice and helpful professors; and there is a good chance that I will never see them again. The thought of it makes my heart ache. I am a very emotional person, especially over people I love and respect.
I think I have shown enough remarkable fortitude for the last four months but this is too much for me. I want to go home and I am excited to go and I am looking forward to it because I miss my wife and kids more than anything else. They are part of me and I am part of them.
I have survived the chilly weather, the food, the culture shock, and everything that has been thrown on me and I want to go home. I enjoyed some courses, some cultural events, some friendships...yet, heck with the cheese, just let me out of the trap.
East or west, home is best.

A Moroccan in Snowy Kent, Ohio.

Snowfall caused class cancellation on Feb. 13th in Kent, Ohio. So, I locked myself in my room at the University Inn. It was an opportunity for me to catch up with all the assignments I had missed. After breakfast, I sat by the window and looked outside at the white houses, the white cars, the white trees… everything was white. I thought about the weather in this part of the world. It was not only snowy but chilly as well. The only creatures that dared to go out were the squirrels. They were constantly running back and forth looking for food under the flakes of snow. For me, it was just ‘snow’ but people here certainly see different kinds of snow and have different names for it. I see one snow and they see a lot of different kinds snow. When I told them that it was cold, they usually responded that that was nothing compared to what was coming in February and March. They must have a wealth of names for cold. They must have been the ones who contributed the most synonyms of the word ‘cold’ to Thesaurus Word Dictionaries.
Thought led to thought and I started to think about how this weather has dictated and shaped people’s lives. Because of the snow and cold, very few people walk and this must have contributed to the problem of obesity. Because of the cold, people talk about the cold to start a warm conversation and so do I sometimes on the bus to the Student Center, Acme, Wal-Mart and Ravenna when I want to start a conversation to loosen my tongue and practice my English. Cold must have contributed to their sedentary, stay-at-home lifestyle. They travel less and don’t know where Morocco is.
I also thought about the amount of energy needed to keep all the heaters running 24 hours a day in buildings, cars and buses and everywhere. How much energy is used to provide hot water to the citizens? How much energy is used to keep electric cookers running?
I thought and thought but more often than not it was and is hard to find the right answers or imagine them…So, I quit thinking and I started my laptop to do the assignments.

First Night at Kent, Ohio, USA

On January 11th, 2008, around 10:30, I arrived in Kent, Ohio, to attend a semester-long academic program at KSU. The program includes auditing courses on teaching methodologies, curriculum development, and the use of technology for education. It also includes ESL classes and an eight week internship at Lakewood High School. I had to stay at the University Inn which is not very far from the White Hall where we take courses. For dinner, I had some juice, bread, and a yogurt provided by the Inn because I had forgotten my dinner on the plane . It was not snowy or rainy as we expected but it was cold outside. The room was heated and had all the necessary furniture in it: Bed, TV, phone, tables, chairs, a fridge, an electric cooker, a microwave, hot running water etc. I had a shower first, then I started to unpack. I did not sleep until 1:15 and I was dead tired. At 02:05, I woke up, startled by the sound of the smoke detector. I thought something was burning in my room and I looked all over but there was no fire, no smoke, no smell no nothing. I didn’t know what was going on and it was my first night there. Maybe I inadvertently did something wrong! I called the desk but James was not there. He does not work at night. I called Abdesalam, my Moroccan friend in his room but he did not know what to do either. I looked at the crazy buzzing thing for some time then decided to go back to bed and forget about it. Impossible. The sound was deafenning. I stood up and looked through the window and saw nothing but darkness. I went back to the paper James had given us on arrival and read it word for word. It read, “Our emergency number after hours is ### ### #### or extention 511”. I quickly dialed the three digits and could not believe my ears when a voice said “Hello.” The night guard soon came up to my room and used one of my towels to blow air at the crazy thing. Maybe he thought I was smoking or something though I had never lit a cig in my life. The obstinate detector went on buzzing. He then stepped on a chair and reached for it and opened it. “It’s the battery”, he said. “I’ll have it changed tomorrow.”