Social Media in the school/classroom is a touchy subject.  On one hand they are a great tool to reach kids using a familiar platform and incorporating some fun. On the other hand there are many privacy and safety concerns with social media that school systems must take into account.  Many families may not want or allow their children to be on social media because of the dangers of predators or cyber bullying.  Many school systems air on the side of caution and allow that decision to be made in the home.  This allows parents to make those choices for their children and removes responsibility from the school system.

School systems also recognize that teachers are people too, and allowing students and teachers to connect on social media may not be a good idea.  Hopefully teachers would not use a personal account to connect with students, but I have seen it done by colleagues.  Students immediately have access to information about your personal life and how you spend your free time, this information may not be appropriate for school aged children either.

There are advantages to using social media in school though.  Students can quickly respond to prompts from teachers via twitter, share media files relating to school topics with teachers on facebook or twitter, or take photos and caption them with photo sharing services like instagram or flickr.  The opportunities for social media use are endless in the classroom.  Some school systems embrace this and see using these tools in school as an opportunity to also teach students about internet safety and digital citizenship.  Most school systems ask that we teach these ideas to our students, and many teachers see this as another thing to do with our very limited time with our students.  By intertwining school work with the digital world teachers can teach these important life lessons while also teaching content.

I think programs such as Edmodo and Google Classroom are great ways to protect students but also allow them a collaborative space online.  Only those invited to these sites can join them, but once inside they appear and function like social media.  If approved by the school system these sites can provide a way for teachers to teach the same “safety and digital citizenship” lessons knowing that they are not potentially putting students in harms way by being on an open site like Facebook or Twitter.