The Green Cup

There are dozens of others, but the most well known social networks are MySpace and Facebook.

Wikipedia says that social networks are “online communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.”

There are a number of reasons that social network web sites present problems. A few of the reasons:

• People create profiles and pages for themselves that are misleading. The simple truth is that when you meet someone on MySpace or Bebo, you don’t really know the simple truth about them. You know what they tell you. They say they’re 28 when in fact they’re 42. They say they’re single when in fact they’re married. They say they went to college when in fact they dropped out of high school. And you can’t tell (unless you know them in some context other than the Internet).
• Social networking websites provide a false sense of security and privacy. You think no one can see the things you say and the pictures you post there outside of a small group of online friends. But there are ways around that. And your “friends” may well show complete strangers what you’ve put online.
• Social networking web sites do give you a way to communicate with increased privacy. It’s one thing to have a relationship through email that might be inappropriate in some way. But the messaging tools of many social networking web sites add a new layer of “discretion” to your communications.

I could go on…

From an education point of view, the second biggest problem that social networking web sites present is that they provide a sheltered environment within which teachers can form less than appropriate relationships with students. I’m not talking about pedophilia, though obviously that makes the news from time to time. It’s just that Twitter and Friendster can blur a teacher’s relationship with a student. Students get confused and think that the fact that a teacher cares about them and is willing to communicate with them through their medium means they’re friends…

That’s only the second biggest problem . The biggest problem that social networking web sites present for education today is more fundamental. The problem is that they exist at all. Social networking web sites are a fact of life – part of the fabric of modern society. They’re an undeniably important relationship and communication tool. And they’re here to stay. That’s a problem because education in America has to learn to cope with them and to incorporate them into the curriculum.

Social Networking web sites can have a lasting impact on a teacher’s professional life. But simply pretending that they don’t exist and avoiding them isn’t the answer. Later this week I’ll look at what social networks have to offer us in education, and we’ll see if we can’t find some good in them.