Podcast Reflection #4: Facebook Talk

             Unlike some students my age I am not an hourly Facebook user.  I do usually check it once a day, but sometimes not even that.  Since I have started my education classes, I have learned about setting a positive digital footprint.  I also am more aware of cyber bullying.  That is why I listened to Facebook Talk from Driving Questions in Education 2011 on Kevin Honeycutt’s website. 

            Him and some of his colleagues: Jaime Hendricks and Chris Loch talked about how we need to help kids understand the ramifications of their actions on social networking sites like Facebook.  They talked about how kids live I the now.  They live in their own world, and do not realize that what they are posting can be seen by everyone and found months or years later.  Kevin talked about how we can’t take these sites away from kids because they will find other ways to use them anyway, so we have to try to make them more aware of their actions. 

            Jaime pointed out we need to help kids understand that it isn’t ok to post when they are angry.  As teachers we need to teach kids how to confront each other in person to deal with their problems.  It is better to talk things out in person, than to “air dirty laundry” on the Internet.  She pointed out how important it is for parents to have these conversations at home even before their kids start using these sites. 

            It is easy to say that we need to help kids understand how to behave on social networking sites, but how do we really do this?  Jaime, Chris, and Kevin said schools need to put on more workshops and professional development seminars for not only teachers, but also students and parents.  These workshops also need to be done several times a year. 

            These workshops could definitely help educate teachers and parents, but sometimes kids need more than someone speaking at them.  They need information that is personal to them.  That is why the group talked about using personal stories to help teach kids.  As teachers we could use positive and negative stories about social networking to help students understand that social networking is a good thing when used properly.

             I agree with everything that this group talked about in this podcast.  I do think that these social networking sites are important to our future.  We can’t leave kids in the dark because then we are not really preparing them for their future.  We do, however, need to find ways to help educate them before they make a mistake that will follow them for the rest of their lives.