Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are the main social networks at the moment with a growing list of 700 different social websites and apps in use globally. 
The news that 5 million Facebook users are under the age of 10 and 7.5 million are under the age of 13, despite the age limit being 13 means its worth thinking about educating kids on how to use social media in positive ways.
Cyber-security has just been introduced to the US curriculum and in the UK it isn’t compulsory to teach anything social media related.
We often associate younger children using social media with horror stories about pictures being shared and child grooming- but what about the positive outcomes of social media?
Here’s some reasons it might be a good idea for children to be using social media in a controlled environment.
Connections- Encourage pupils to connect online with everyone they know in the classroom and ask them to keep those connections. In years to come when someone needs to interview a rocket scientist or wants to start up a blog, a wide range of connections can come in handy!
Engagement- It doesn’t matter if their account is for sharing personal images or for sharing links to a blog, at some point students will need to engage with each other online. It could be to ask a question about homework or to ask where one of their classes is. This is positive engagement and the type of interaction that’s worthwhile to promote during classes.
Information- Twitter is especially great for this. News sites post about the latest news as it happens, this is the same for personal accounts, classmates can post up to date information meaning you can do all sorts of twitter activities with your class (see below).
Literacy skills- Kids will think twice about simple things such as spelling when they know that their writing can be viewed online by classmates and teachers. Sending a quick tweet will help kids practise better grammar.
Social Skills- The majority of kids will use social media as an accompaniment to real interaction with friends. This allows networking and conversation outside of the classroom to take place.
Emerging technologies- Everything is online these days and its important to teach kids computer and internet skills because they’ll need them in later life. The more up to date your class are on the latest social media trends the easier they’ll find it to navigate these areas when they find they need to in the future.
A 2012 survey by Jobvite found over 90% of employers use social media to recruit, that number increases every year. LinkedIn, a social media site with over 200 million users is the dominant recruiting network so introducing children to sites like LinkenIn is very beneficial for their future employment.
No one wants their student to be expelled under circumstances like Austin Carroll- the Indiana high school student that got himself expelled after tweeting this.
Get online in the classroom!
- Mark Guay, writing for The Huffington Post, recently stated that all headteachers should be tweeting. His point was that all students need positive social media role models and, with twitter being a free to use service there’s not really an excuse not to utilize Twitter in schools.
- Do’s and don’t- Before you leave your pupils free to roam on the internet, creating a simple list of do’s and don’ts can be a great way of ensuring nothing inappropriate ends up online.
- Connect with classrooms around the globe- why not set up a twitter chat using hashtags and let your students connect with pupils on the other side of the world, teaching them about new cultures and socialising online.
- Questions and answers- Pose a question to your pupils and get them to reply via twitter, you can then project the replies on a board at the front of your class.
- Engage parents- allow parents to follow you as a teacher on twitter, it will make them feel a sense of involvement and you can update them on the latest classroom activities.
- Live tweet events- Activity days, school plays and guest speakers are all events which students can live tweet from a school account, this is great for budding journalists.
These are all ideas about how you can incorporate social media use into your classroom- we know you know your class better than anyone though so let us know in the comments below if you use social media and how it benefits your classes.
For a host of videos, advice and surveys on children’s on-line safety visit the safety advice on Childline here.
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