Social Media Lessons

First, a video.

The video is by a guy named Jack Vale. If you didn't watch it, essentially what he does is use a social media app to search for existing social media accounts in his vicinity. He pokes around and finds one that is not locked too tightly with security settings, and goes about finding this individual. He studies their profile enough to be able to kind of creep them out - things like telling them what they had for lunch, or where they work, or what kind of dog they have.

Nothing is really invasive, but it's also a well-intentioned guy trying to prove a point. Needless to say, not everyone online is as well-intentioned. As a teacher, this brings up a whole new realm for us to think about with our students. I am taking a course online called "Connected Educators" that is studying this topic right now. Whether you call it digital citizenship or something else, the idea is still the same - the world is becoming more connected and mistakes in one's youth are becoming more magnified.

This course has me thinking about my role in teaching students about digital citizenship. My thoughts center around a pretty singular thought:

Good digital citizenship alone will not get you a job, but bad digital citizenship alone may lose you a job.

My good friend Andy Hanch is also taking this class, and he talked about his own thinking with digital citizenship. One of the things that he said in his post this past week that struck me was the thought that teaching about this might not necessarily be our job, but that he has started too come around to the thought that it is ingrained in everything that we do online.

This mirrors pretty exactly my own journey of thought. I have to do more than except certain online behavior - I have to model and teach online behavior. 

Teaching with digital citizenship in mind is something that educators have to be ready to do. The future of our world is becoming more digital all the time. In my perfect school, we do not just teach content, but we teach how to be good people and good citizens. Nothing really changes, and yet EVERYTHING changes!

As if teaching wasn't hard enough already!

Thanks for reading this blog! I hope you'll consider taking a moment to comment below and turn this into a conversation. Whether you are an educator or not, we have all had common experiences with education both good and bad. I want to hear what you think! 


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