Social Networking in Education: A Personal Perspective

I recently read a quotation about social networking in the healthcare field. The writer said “in order to educate and communicate as a professional, you have to go where the audience is.” I found this quote to be incredibly compelling, because I feel as though it applies to the classroom as well. Social media is how students get their news and share their lives – so wouldn’t it make sense that we, as educators, follow suit?

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I work at a school where science, technology, and mathematics are the focus. Students in our STEP program arrive, laptops in hand, to be prepared for their future. While we have not been obligated to use a social networking tool, we have been asked to look at a variety of learning management suites, including but not limited to Edmodo, Schoology, and the eLearning LMS. In essence, we are using these suites as teacher webpages, however each of them has their own social networking component, should teachers happen to want to use them. I find that many of my associates at school have decided that these tools are an effective way to communicate with students and parents, and have chosen to embrace their preferred tool. If we are truly looking to ‘go where the audience is,’ and considering our job is to prepare students to be productive members of society, I believe that it is incredibly important for social networking to become an obligation at many levels of a school infrastructure.

Transparency in education is the ability for parents, universities, community members, peers, and related organizations to see what is happening in the classroom and at your school – I see no reason why leaders should not be transparent.

My school, Lockerby Composite School, has embraced the idea of social networking. We have several Twitter accounts (https://twitter.com/LockerbyNet, https://twitter.com/LCScancerdrive) that we use to keep parents and students aware of the ongoings in our school.

A teacher that I follow who has become very involved in social networking is Kyle Pearce. He is a teacher from Belle River, Ontario who piloted a paperless classroom using iPads, and uses social networking as a way to gather resources, network with other like minded teachers, and communicate great ideas in math! (https://twitter.com/MathletePearce, http://tapintoteenminds.com)