In the halls of any high school in our country it seems that more and more students are using technology to interact with more people then ever before. I know of students who can be writing and sending a text message from their pocket of their sweatshirt as they are looking a teacher in the eye and answering a question about history. Our students rely on technology more then I ever have. Because of their familiarity with technology and the network and equipment they already have set up and access to as educators we have a great setup to use for educational purposes. MySpace and Face Book are popular social media sites. There are also programs that can send text messages to students’ cell phones or handheld devices that update them on information about a specific topic. Twitter is very popular example of this. Students can continue class discussions out side of class and ask and answer questions either logged onto the computer or through their cell phones.

The social media that our students interact with is a great educational tool because of its ubiquitous nature; however it is very difficult to control. A colleague of mine set up Twitter in her English class but had to place many restrictions on her students. They had to come up with aliases. They could not use a picture of them that showed their face on their profile. All students had to have parent permission as well. Students did really well with Twitter and were really excited about it. My colleague said that students were making Twitter dates so they could get together after school and tweet. What a great way to get students talking about Shakespeare! However there was a problem with students getting text messages all day long in other teachers’ classes. Also, not all students have cell phones or phones with unlimited texting, so this could get rather expensive for those who do not have unlimited texting capabilities.

• It is very advantageous for educators to use a network that students are familiar with and enjoy interacting with
• Almost all students use the social web outside of school
• Classroom discussions can be continued outside of school

The concern that I have with using social media in the classroom is student safety. There are more and more online predators that put our youth at risk. School schould be a safe place where students are able to focus on learning, not protecting themselves from others. The English teacher at my school took extra precautions to make sure that her students would be safe. Another concern for student safety that I have is regarding other students. The social media that our students interact with is not immune to harassment, threats, and slander. A new term has come up called “sexting” where students send revealing pictures of them selves to one another. There has been a recent case in the news where a young girl killed herself because of pictures of her were sent around school. Once something is sent out it can not be taken back, and the original sender had no control over where it goes or who sees or reads it.

• Predation and harassment is a reality of social media
• Some students may not use social media responsibly
• Students do not have control over information sent after it is sent