Uncharted Waters of Social Networks
I recently read the article Navigating Social Networks (Hamblin and Bartlett, 2013). The article points out that many blurred lines exist between social networking platforms and schools. As we all know, social networks reach a vast audience and provide a platform for communication and expression. This article covers several cases that deal with student's use of social network at home and consequences at school. Although, the school cannot control what is said or done at home when the lines of bullying, harassment, making threats are crossed the school has rights to deliver consequences. With the exception of these types of cases, students' rights are still protected under freedom of speech and self-expression. However, the article points out that teachers are a different story. Teachers using social networks to unleash frustrations have lost many of these cases and even their jobs.
This article was written in 2013, but five years later I still feel that we are in uncharted waters with this issue. What are the lines for students and teacher? What does reasonable consequences look like? What role does a school division play in all this? Statista reports that Facebook has over 2 million active users worldwide and YouTube is a close second with 1.5 million. With those numbers continuing to climb, teachers, schools, and families need to get involved to educate, promote safe use, and prevent cyber bullying and harassment.
Hamblin, DeAnna & Bartlett, Marilyn. "Navigating Social Networks." Educational Leadership March 2013. Pages 44 - 47.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
I think that uncharted waters concept really applies to social networks and their impact on the school environment. I remember how a group of middle schoolers I worked with a while ago created a facebook group to gossip about school-related matters, the entries were anonymous, and well you can imagine what the kids had to say. When the admin finally caught up it was a huge deal, but many students were surprised and event protested against closing the site, they felt it was their right to have a place to post honest opinions. The administration had to develop a workshop about how to handle yourself in the online world and how those anonymous words really had an impact and could potentially hurt others. For the teachers, it was eye-opening to see how kids dismiss this issue so quickly, for them it was just another Facebook group.
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