Online Impressions: The Importance of Teaching Good Social Media Behaviour
13:28:00First Impressions
Everyone has heard that phrase “first impressions are everything” and we all know how difficult it can be to change your opinion on somebody after your first impression. Nowadays things have changed. With social media, blogging, and LinkedIn, your first impression on people happens before you even have a chance to meet them. You may think that this means you no longer have control over people’s initial impressions of you, but in reality, we can have even more control over it, if we plan ahead.
As educators we are able to tailor our social media accounts, monitor our tweets, become private with our photos, and create positive and informative blogs to make our online presence, and therefore our first impression on people, a good one.
If it is so important for educators and adults to have a good online impression, why is it that we don’t start learning about this until late high school or university? Students as young as the junior grades are all online on social media, shouldn’t we be teaching them how to behave online responsibly now?
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| mkhmarketing (2013, March 8). Social Media Class (Digital Image). |
Social Media in the Classroom
Many old school educators might argue that social media is social, and therefore belongs outside the classroom. And while those educators are entitled to their wrong opinion, it is important for us teachers to all get on the same page with social media and technology education.
Not only is it necessary for teachers to highlight how important online behaviour is, they can instruct and demonstrate positive online presence by using social media directly in their classrooms. Social media can be an extremely effective learning tool for keeping students both engaged and informed. In order for students to better understand how social media may affect them, teachers need to highlight what is good and bad behaviour online. Also, using social media in the classroom and teaching social media and online etiquette can help prevent and decrease an extreme crisis facing young people today, cyber bullying.
Social Media as a Tool
There are many benefits to using social media in the classroom, a number of which are highlighted in Vicki Davis’ blog post on Edutopia. She supplies a solid argument against teachers that try to say social media is social, therefore we shouldn't allow socializing in our classroom. Davis replies to this by highlighting the difference between social conversation at recess and educational conversation in group work. There is a clear distinction between these two types of conversation and there is the same distinction between social media in the classroom and social media at home, IF the teacher implements it correctly.
Using social media tools creates many possible gains in the classroom. Students use social media in their everyday lives and using it in the classroom keeps them much more entertained and engaged than other more traditional classroom methods. Davis’ article also provides a number of examples of teacher’s utilizing social media in their classroom successfully which can serve as inspiration for other aspiring teachers.
There are an endless amount of apps and websites that are focused on keeping the classroom social and educational. Students are able to log in at home or in the classroom in order to work together collaboratively, participate in a unique way (especially important for shy students), and see the things their peers have worked on.
Online Etiquette
It is essential that students understand how much of an effect their online presence may have on their futures. They might not realize that everything they put online will be there forever and that it is extremely easy for it to be seen by strangers all over the world.
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| Bour, Melissa (2014). |
Not only do students need to recognize how a bad online presence can negatively affect them, they also need to understand how much a good online presence can positively affect their futures. Dan Schawbel outlines in his forbes article how our online presence will replace our resumes in the next 10 years.
Social Media Bullying
Cyberbullying or social media bullying is an epidemic that affects millions of children and young adults all the time. There have been far far too many suicides that are reportedly linked to cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is different from your typical old school bullying because it doesn’t end once the victim and the bully go home. Cyberbullying is constant. Bullies feel as though they are protected through a screen, and therefore say more hurtful things than they would regularly say in person. Also bullies are able to delete their posts or their tweets, which makes tracking and punishing them a lot trickier.
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| nobullying.com (2016, October 13). Social Media Bullying (Infograph). |
One extremely important factor when dealing with cyber bullying is providing students with a safe space to talk about what is happening to them. They may fear that talking about it will only make it worse, so teachers (and parents) need to ensure that children feel safe talking to them in order to find out about these issues. There is an extremely helpful link with a ton of information and tips here!
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