Preparing Younger Students for Social Networking Places
Vicki Davis has written another excellent article “Robert Scoble has too many friends” about Social Networking. I have left her a comment on that post.
I have been witnessing my daughter’s use, as a college freshman, of Facebook. I am thankful that she has added me as a friend and allows me a little insight into her social networking.
It has been incredible to witness how she is communicating with friends and acquaintances and navigating college life.
Before the first day in August, she already knew most students who would be sitting in class with her. I was amazed at the speed that news traveled about who was taking which class and which professor at what time last week, when spring registration started last week.I see kids encouraging each other in their classes, reminding themselves of deadlines and term papers, giving leads about job applications, etc.
An “overachiever” in one of her classes has created a facebook group in order to upload and share his class notes
My daughter has stayed in touch with her friends who went on to different colleges across the country and are planning reunions during the semester break when they come home for the holidays.
I agree with you that the “good little boys and girls” who do not use Social Network places will be left out of the conversation.
So not only will the ones, not on Facebook and MySpace, be left out of the conversation, not meet, be in the loop, and get to know the they rest of the gang (networking part), they will also not know about the “social” part. Who is hanging out with whom? When is everybody meeting and where? These questions are not that different than the for the students from twenty years ago, but where they go to get their answers has surely changed.
Since I teach at an elementary school level, my thoughts turn as always to the younger crowd.
Although High Schoolers are migrating towards Facebook , which seems more geared towards College Students and Graduates, my guess is that the majority of elementary school students are not found on Facebook . They are running to create their pages on MySpace as moths gravitate toward the light. Some of them are doing this on their own, while others are signing up with the help and consent of their parents. Now, we are talking about kids between the ages of 10-13. Officially you are supposed to be 14 to be able to create an account with MySpace.
It is one of those instances, where you know that the children are going to “do it anyway”, no matter what the rules are. The best approach, in my opinion, is yo teach them to be safe in any social network environment. So the next best thing would be, since we can’t (and wouldn’t) all sign-up for MySpace accounts and hang out there, is to create our own Social Network site, where these younger students can try out their wings in a safe and controlled environment.
I have created a Ning site for our school and would really like to work with the 4th-6th graders. Thanks to an blog post from Steve Hagardonm, I e-mailed the people from Ning and requested to have the ads removed from the site. Within a few hours I received an e-mail from the Ning team granting my request. Thank you!!
Now I am a little stumped. How will I proceed? Do I create usernames for ALL the 4th-6th graders? Do I pilot this at our school with just a few volunteer students, as an after school activities? Should I have a parent assembly first in order to speak to them about Social Network sites that their children are already or are going to be confronted and involved in in the near future? What will be the best approach? The majority of our parent community is afraid of, does not know or understands social networking technology. They seem to pretend it is not there or flat our prohibit the use of it by their children. I know they will be a hard case to work on in order to make them understand that we need to prepare their children for a different networking world than they grew up with.
I know that a few of you have already ventured into the Social Network arena with elementary school students. I would appreciate any insight and advice. What are your thoughts on helping our younger students grow / ease into the world of MySpace and Facebook type of networks?
Having discovered last year that some of my 10-13 year old students were members on a less than savoury social network, I came to the same conclusion you come to. This year I have started 2 ning networks one in Hebrew for my 5th grades. Another in English for my EFL 6 grade students.
Before introducing them to the networks, we created a set of acceptable usage guidelines. I didn’t create user accounts for the students instead I had them request membership using a school catchall email account (courtesy of Google Apps) – - I did however stipulate what the username part of the email should be, in order that I would be able to easily recognize each student from his email address.
I also had each student create or pick an avatar for his profile page and I chose to moderate photos and videos.
Our school has used discussion forums for a couple of years – parents sign a permission form at the beginning of the year – allowing their children to take part in moderated discussion forums and online communicative activities
Susan, Can you share some of the guidelines and issues with the username? I am very interested in hearing about it.
I shared a much too long blogpost about the guidelines and username issues. techteachr.blogspot.com
Great post Silvia – I have been saying exactly the same things at ISB all year.
I’m especially concerned after working with middle school students last year and seeing them so easily make the separation between personal and school online work – meaning they knew what was appropriate and safe for school work and followed expectations, but completely put those understandings aside when working on their myspace pages. It was scary. We need to instill safe behaviors *before* they start “separating” their online personalities.
At this point, we are using Ning as a teaching and learning tool – using the social networking features, but not letting it go completely social. We have 3 set up:
1. Grade 5 highly able readers Ning: connecting students in different grade 5 classes at ISB and around the world to discussing reading and books.
2. Grade 4 “Connected Classroom” Ning: connecting 11 grade 4 classes around the world to develop personal connections, learn about different regions of the world first hand, and to teach and learn core curricular concepts from each other.
3. Grade 2 “World Village” Ning: a grade 2 class connects with another class in the US to discuss global citizenship and inter-cultural understanding.
We’ve had discussions about appropriate behavior and use of the Ning – lots of talks about safety, though all of these Nings are totally private. We’ve sent permission slips home for all parents to sign.
Our second graders have the gmail linked addresses so that only the teacher gets new e-mails but the 4th and 5th use their own e-mail address – I’m trying to foster as much independence as I can.
I like the idea of guidelines for appropriate behavior, too – I’m going to add that in now!
Kim,
Did you set up all the e-mails for the 4th & 5th graders? Or did the parents do this? Have you given a parent workshop about social networking places? I am worried about parents not wanting their children to participate out of their own fear and ignorance of the benefits.
Hi All
I noticed that some of you have set up social networks for students under 13. I also tried this with Ning but they told me it was against their Terms. How did you get past those conditions?
@Andrew
Ning must have changed their policy, since I e-mailed them when I set the Ning up. I let them know that this was for an elementary school and they were gracious to remove the ads from out Ning for us.
I am sorry to see them change since the younger students especially need to guided and guarded exposure to social network places.
Silvia