As some districts ban the use of social media in and out of classrooms, and others encourage its use, how do you explain such polar viewpoints?

Things that are common now would have been banned 20-30 years ago. Our society has become so open to adult language and things that are inappropriate in nature.  Just this morning, I heard a credit card commercial with Samuel Jackson using profanity. Many commercials already have suggestive themes. Our children are exposed to so much more now at a younger age.

When we think of protecting our students from certain topics especially in elementary school, it can be a tough job due to the fact that the internet has so many questionable sites.  With technology becoming such an integral part of our everyday lives, we also on the other hand cannot keep our children from learning things through the internet.

Some counties that limit the websites offered make it very difficult for students to learn about some topics that are behind a blanketed block on sites. As a teacher, it can be very frustrating when you want you students to grow in their knowledge of things they can explore through the internet.

There needs to be a happy medium in their exposure at school. We need to be proactive in guarding what websites the students are accessing. Obviously with many of the examples we have learned through the Kenan workshops, technology and the social media can be a great thing.

I am in the process right now of creating webinars for parents to learn some of the same techniques we use in the classroom for our students with severe disabilities.  We learned so many examples of teachers using the internet for flipping their classrooms. I wanted to be able to reach my parents through versions of social media to help us all be on the same page with helping their children.

With our young people being so computer literate and involved in social media, we have no choice but to figure out how to make it all work in a safe and respectable manner.  If we want to reach our students in their world, we have to find a happy medium of how to make it work while not losing the focus of what’s important and appropriate.