That is definitely the question of the hour or at least for the moment.  You see the only thing that is constant is change.  Having been in education for 16 years I’ve seen lots of change.  Technology has exploded in the last few years and the way we communicate is changing rapidly.  I imagine that when Samuel Morris sent that first telegraph he could not have imagined how communication would evolve by now where literally you can communicate with hundreds…even thousands of people…in a moment.

And as with all new technology we are faced with the dilemma of how will it change us.  Fear of the unknown can absorb you.  If we communicate via social networks instead of face to face will it change the fiber of who we are?  The answer is no.  But that doesn’t stop people from fearing..that new ways of doing things will change them..change our society….be used for wrongdoing.  And here’s the thing…all of those things are true.  But they don’t have to be the only truths.

Will social media change us?  Yes.  Has it changed our society?  Yes.  Has it been used wrongly?  Yes.  However…the same can be said of the telegraph, the pony express, telephones, and yes even pencil and paper.

In schools there are basically two view points…get rid of it or embrace it.  I tend to go with embracing it and here’s why….

1.  It’s not going to go away.  It’s only going to get bigger and faster!  In a room of about 85 new teachers I met with at the beginning of school all but a couple had a social media account.  Universities, businesses, schools, families are using them more and more to communicate.  They can communicate in real time and share highlights and encourage others to do the same.  Even my three year old asks, “Put it on Facebook?” every time I take his picture with my iPhone.

2.  It’s powerful.  There are almost 600,000,000 users of Twitter.  An average of 58 million Tweets are sent daily.  Eleven accounts are created on Twitter every second.  Enough said.

3.  It has the power to transform the face of education.  Social Media makes you accessible and visible on a whole new level.  Teachers can post about the exciting things going on in their classrooms.  Administrators can post resources for their parents and teachers.  Staff development becomes interactive as does the classroom.  It opens up a new way for students to express themselves and share their thoughts and ideas.

4.  It gives us the opportunity to teach ethical communication to children.  It doesn’t matter what media you use…it can be used for evil.  Bullying, lying, cheating, these are all things that drive fear of Social Media.  Of course social media can be used for all of these things and they are the basis for most schools on refusing to allow it.  However, I would stress that it is still going to happen.  Our job is to model and teach them how to use it responsibly.