The Writing is on the Screen: Social Networking is Here to Stay

The title of this blog post is the title of the chapter that I recently read from a book titled The Socially Networked Classroom.  This chapter dealt with bringing up questions and ideas that you may face in your classroom in terms of how social networking will play into your instruction.  The author states in the first chapter that he believes this book would be best utilized by teachers who are dealing with 5 graders all the way through adults.  This idea just plays on the fact that sometimes there is an age where it can be too dangerous or risky to have children involved with all that comes along with being a part of a social network.  Teachers should not be afraid of using social networks in their classrooms and as a way to have the children engaged and to help them learn, but it is also important to make sure that you use discretion and you don't expose children to something that powerful and far reaching before they are ready for it.  The author says that they will use real life examples to help explain the application to various classrooms.  I think that will make it less likely to see over-whelming to teachers who may not be familiar with how to make things fit the context of their own classroom.  In terms of using this technology in my own classroom I'm not sure how much I would be able to integrate social networking in the younger grades, but it doesn't mean that sometime in the next five years it won't be relevant.  The biggest concern with introducing this technology to your students is that you don't want them to lose to much of that innocence at a young age, how do you keep them young without keeping them sheltered?  I guess it will be a game of balance and just realizing that social networking is going to be around so you shouldn't try and fight it and run away from it, but rather show students how it can be more than just a communication tool, but also that it can be a valuable learning tool.