The range of opinions (and sometimes strong emotions) on social media use in school is truly incredible. Some believe it’s the silver bullet of the day to fix student engagement and increase learning. Others believe it’s the worst possible use of time, energy, and money. Freely using social media without a well planned lesson or goal is disastrous, but so is banning social media use entirely. Clearly, the true answer lies somewhere in between.
I am a bit frustrated by this topic because my school system has implemented new student emails this year. Students are only allowed to communicate with their teachers electronically through those email accounts. It is difficult to know whether educational tools like Edmodo are still acceptable, and it is very clear that most forms of social media interactions between students are teachers are off limits.
Obviously not all social media use between teachers and students is positive, but I think we’re really missing out on another way to reach our students by banning it entirely. One of the mantras for teaching should be “every child, every chance, every day.” If we’re not utilizing all avenues to reach our students, are we really giving them the most opportunities to be successful?
Even more importantly… everyone knows most students (especially my high school students) use multiple forms of social media constantly. How are we supposed to teach digital citizenship and positive social media use to students if we aren’t allowed to model it and use it in classrooms?