Social Media in Classrooms

#Facebook #twitter #TikTok #Instagram #digitalcitizenship

Social media have a great influence on students learning. Children are already exposed to social media as early as three or four years old. As a mother of a three-year-old boy, I try not to expose him to social media by not letting him see me look at Facebook or other social media post. Students nowadays are more expert in navigating social media. Some teachers might think that it is not suitable as students will be exposed to content that is not appropriate for their age. In my opinion, teachers can use the students' "expertise" with social media to their advantage and use it as an instructional tool.

Using social media in the classroom caused a lot of debates between school administration and teachers. School districts discourage using social media because of student information privacy and cyberbullying. Under the FERPA, school districts are responsible for protecting students' identity, and using social media in school breaks that law. Cyberbullying is one form of bullying that affects students' behavior in school. Most of the cyberbullying cases happened on different social media platforms. If school districts allow the use of social media in school, they will be liable for any cyberbullying. There are still cases of cyberbullying happening in school, but since the school district does not approve of social media, they will not be liable for it.

For this entry, I will mainly discuss my experience using social media when I was still teaching in the Philippines. I used social media as a learning platform when teaching in the Philippines because it is free. Students are familiar with it. There is no comprehensive law about protecting students' identities at home. I used to post notes or YouTube videos to help my students understand the lesson. The messaging feature of Facebook is an excellent way to communicate with students and parents. Students can post their comments on the discussion board and post their outputs to share with the class. I did not encounter any problems using a social media platform when teaching back home. Instances of misuse of social media occur to other educators, and because school administration cannot access students' accounts, they had a problem investigating cyberbullying and other issues.

I believe that students can avoid the problem brought by social media if teachers set expectations at the beginning of the school year. Students might be "experts" when using social media, but they still need guidelines to use it properly. Digital citizenship should be introduced during the students' first year in school. The use of technology in the classroom will always be there, and educators should be proactive with this issue. Incorporating digital citizenship classes in school is a great way to do this.