Social media and social networks are virtual communities which allow people be connected from one end to another of the whole planet, as well as share information (from music taste to news, opinions, etc.) not only with your family but with friends, workmates, ... They centralize resources, so you are able to send photos, videos, and manage your own site.
Social networks and social media in education.
Social media allows a triple relationship; between teachers, between students and teachers, and between parents and teachers. Teachers can treat important issues, organize meetings and events, share resources and information, update knowledge... Students and teachers can use specialized media (Moodle, Class Dojo, Classroom...) to upload activities and tasks, to clear out doubts, create debates, and to have quicklier contact than they would have sometimes in person (for example wait a whole weekend to clarify a doubt in person). Teachers can as well contact with parents via social media to inform about any aspect about the educational means of their children, open doors days, any events, authorizations needed for trips...
When talking about this interesting and inmense topic, teachers must show students the 3 Cs' in Social media: Comunication, Cooperation, and Community. Comunication stands for improving dialogue among people, always showing respect for others; Cooperation stands for promoting sharing actions; and Community stands for integrating related groups. Students must be, as well, aware of the advantages and disadvantages that come with Social media.
Advantages include those as thin geografic barriers by connecting people from all over the world, having connections to the professional world, having updated information of everything that is happening on our planet as well as about those topics they are interested in.
Disadvantages are important as well, since they can put them in danger if they are not taken into account; privacy terms and its configuration are essential, since if not correctly used, all of our content is easily exposed to the virtual community, impersonation is another important topic to treat in class, since it is more frequent than thought, and minors are easy targets for hackers and impersonation professionals (directly related to privacy terms), and another key topic is the addiction we are submitted to.
Michael Desmurget, a Neurocience doctor, calls out in his lattest book "The digital cretin factory. The dangers of screens for our children." the dangers of social media in the younger generation, and after diverse studies he has collaborated in, he assures cognitive development is deteriorating by the excessive use of social networks. He is not one of those people who think social media should be prohibited, but, on the contrary, encourges their use in the educational aspect, for example on virtual classrooms, creating virtual environments in which students keep learning some basic digital habilities, most of them related to the advantages and disadvantages already mentioned.
In conclusion, social networks are really useful and interesting, and its obvious their contribution in connecting people and expand knowledge, but it is also key to know their effects and that there is a whole world beyond them, so students (and non students too) must be aware they do not have to lock themselves in a virtual world which can be sometimes fictional.
The social networks in our Didactic Unit
We plan to use diverse social media along our project, being the main ones Facebook, Twitter and Gmail. Some side networks are Google Meet and Tiktok. As we will treat the main ones individually and plan to talk about the "new" social network impact's , Tiktok, on the younger generations, here we will let stablished what we will be using them for. Vanesa suggested using Twitter or Facebook with the students, so we have created one of each network, and use them to stage what we would do if this project was real. We have created a page in Facebook and a profile in Twitter (links below) and unify them by vinculating the Facebook page to the Twitter profile. We do not find necessary to create a Gmail account for that, but we will talk about its functions as well. Google Meet will be used in the first and tenth sessions for the project students will be creating, and Tiktok will be used in the last session for recreating the extracurricular session.
Our Twitter: https://twitter.com/coleinexistente
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