Social Media in the Schools

In this day and age, technology and social media has become a part of most people's daily lives. Even our schools use social media to get information to students and parents. Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) uses multiple social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.

While employees are allowed to use these sites, they are heavily advised to be extremely careful about who they choose to send/accept friend requests from. At McLean High School, part of FCPS, teachers are strongly recommended to not friend, follow, etc with current students. Once a student has graduated, teachers are free to accept or send friends requests or other social media invitations from or to them. The reasoning behind these rules and suggestions is straightforward. As countless news reports have shown, "friending" underage students, or even students that are technically no longer minors but still students in the school can lead to accusations of inappropriate relationships. While FCPS does not have a formal written policy about the use of social media, its neighbor Arlington County Public Schools (APS) does. Teachers must have any social media platform approved by the school administration each year, as well as including information about the platform in the syllabus given to students and parents.
However, for every teacher that misuses social media, countless more use it to improve their classrooms and their teaching. The following video is about the pros and cons of using social media, specifically Twitter and blogging, in an elementary school classroom in Saskatchewan.

As we can see from the video, these students' learning is enhanced by the use of social media. Having students photograph their creations (Legos, clay, etc) can help build their self-esteem, making them feel that their work is impressive and worthy of preservation. By incorporating what these children have grown up using, teachers can make school more interesting and fun for the students, instead of it being a place where they just sit around and get talked at.






References
"Using Social Media in the Classroom." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

"Fairfax County Public Schools - Get Connected Social Media Links." FCPS Home Page Redirect Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

"Rules to Limit How Teachers and Students Interact Online - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.