Social networking is one of the major trends today and has become one of the major uses of the internet, especially among young people. The fact that it is used so much by students to communicate, share, and collaborate in their personal lives shows that it has the potential to be used to support education. Social networking can be used effectively to keep students connected with their peers and educational content in and out of classrooms. They are able to keep up-to-date with new information especially in courses that may involve keeping track of current happenings such as journalism studies, media studies, social studies, information technology studies, music and more. It is very easy to share information on these network platforms and their very design encourages discussion. The average social networking platform today handles a variety of multimedia and when used with smart devices like tablets and phones, users can share audio and video recordings within minutes of them happening and some may even allow for live streaming of content. Therefore, a student could be out hiking on the weekend and film some of the natural phenomena that is seen that connects with the work being done in Geography class for instance. This can be uploaded for the benefit of classmates and be seen/reviewed/discussed even before getting back to the physical classroom. Even with the benefits and avenues available through social networking, e-safety must be given due attention.
e-Safety (electronic safety) is a major concern in today's world, or at least it should be. In an age where the world has seemingly gotten so much smaller because of how connected we have become through the internet, many persons slight the dangers that exist since they are enraptured in the amazing opportunities that dazzle us in the technologies we have available. Increasingly, it is difficult to exist today without being a part of this grid in many ways - email, social networking, blogging, music, videos, film, instant messaging, online collaboration, and much more. With all of this connectivity, we expose many details about our lives, sometimes absentmindedly or unwittingly, other times naively. Our table and smartphone devices often have very private data stored on them, or the ability to access our private data - everything from personal emails to medical records to financial dealings, almost all of our lives are sometimes accessible. Yet, many persons fail to practice adequate e-Safety. When using technology in the classroom, teachers (and by extension, schools) must take responsibility for the education of students in the area of e-Safety. Students must be taught how to practice appropriate online behaviour as well as how to spot inappropriate and harmful behaviours, especially behaviours that could put their personal safety at risk. Students need to be able to identify things like cyber-bullying, signs of sexual predators, offensive online conduct, inappropriate content and so forth. Schools also need effective e-Safety policies to manage the use of the internet, communication devices, web traffic and so on. Investing in management software designed for this purpose can be very important and effective - some software will allow the filtering of internet traffic on the network to avoid inappropriate content passing through, some will allow teachers to view what is taking place on the computer/device screens in their classroom to ensure students are on task, some may even allow the teacher to disable the devices when there are not to be in use. Yet above all this, I believe students education about safety is most critical since when all is said and done, much of their habits and experiences online will rest squarely on their shoulders.
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