W6: Reflection Question

I have not been in the classroom for a little while. When I was, I was working in a private college which strictly forbid social media in the classroom beyond the odd relevant YouTube video. Students were of course sneaking onto FaceBook etc. when anyone wasn't looking until at one point site were blocked. In my personal life, I have enjoyed using social media to gently keep track of family and friends near and far. I do not use it in a professional capacity at this point. I do have to agree with Turkle and others that the fact that we are doing 12 things at once is not always good for our relationships and that we need sometimes to make the effort to stop and engage on a more personal level. The existing opportunities in this market seem endless already, and as some really just starting to explore them, I am not yet sure where the next ventures will go.

Social Media changed to some degree how I relate to the people around me. I have many family members that live in different time zones around the world and being able to communicate with them more broadly in a group conversation enables me to stay in touch on a schedule that accommodates my own and allows for ongoing conversation that I wasn’t able to establish before different social media platforms were available. In addition, my parents live a 10 drive away and social media allows for them to also watch updates of their granddaughter growing to the extent that they don’t feel they are that far away because they see photos and videos of her so often. I haven’t used much social media in the classroom as I have been moved around to different schools over the past number of years and I think establishing a foundation of social media use in a classroom takes time to implement and also to be able to educate students, parents, and other teachers of its use and benefits. Many parents and teachers are still afraid of too much technology.

How has social media changed how you relate to people around you? Being in a program that consumes a large number of hours in the day, social media has taken a new role in my life as a "life-line" to stay connected. It has helped me to stay connected and current linking to friends and family. While, much like what Turkle expresses in the video, remaining in control of my time and the amount of that said time that I need to spend in order to maintain a connection and relationship with my friends and family. That being said, I am definitely guilty of it but that does not mean that I like it. I've drawn a new attention, when having the time to meet someone in person, to put away my device and really engage and interact with the person I am with. I think that it is important to put away your phone to create that genuine connection. Yes, it's great that we are all learning to multitask and we can all do 12 things at once. But while doing those 12 things, are we making the ones we are with feel valued and heard? It is important to maintain a level of respect for individuals by putting away devices and really hearing people. I can certainly say, I do not want my daughter or husband to remember me looking down at my phone or at my computer - I want to have those special moments when she is so excited to come home and tell me what happened at school, or even when she comes home crying because she did poorly on a test - I want her to see me as someone that listens and cares, not someone only looking at my phone. It is important to create balance between the two.

Our school board has recently switched to being very supportive for Facebook use for our school activities. I found this a little shocking as we have always been told to be very careful of our Facebook profiles and comments. Students names (first names only) and pictures have been posted on our schools facebook page throughout the past school year. I thought that this would be against FOIP protocols and that we would need a release from each student each time their name was mentioned. So I was worried when this transition took place. But the results have shocked me. For the first time, our parents are coming into our school informed about the school happenings. They can follow the page, and be notified when parent teacher interviews are occurring. Students are tagging themselves in the photos, and sharing the pages where they get recognition for their hard efforts. I have much different feelings now than I did before we started using Facebook.

One of the school boards that I work for has a strict policy around the use of FaceBook and other forms of social media with or around students. I do have a FaceBook account and I use Instagram on a regular basis to keep up in touch with my friends and family. I have a big family, many of which live quite a distance away. It would be nearly impossible to keep in touch with them on a regular basis if it was not for these forms of social media. I do sometimes question the authenticity of the relationships as they seem to be one ended. Unlike face to face encounters, social media allows one the ability to choose whether they would like to respond to a particular status or not and can respond in any given time frame, even years after the post.

In reviewing work by Dr. Sherry Turkle, who many of you may know from other courses, Turkle’s refers to “what is a relationship” when she looks at cell phone and social media use and the constant texting that many of us and our students are living with. Thinking about this in reference to this week’s excellent work on Social Media, made me remember a conversation I had on text a while back with a colleague who had moved to another district. There was a slight misunderstanding between us, which left hurt feelings (on my part), and I tried to figure out what had happened. Then I realized, it was the tone. Our conversation was missing so many parts that a relationship needs, the nuances, the emotion, the active listening to one another. Text is fine for quick comments, but so much is lost when a conversation is needed, and a text is settled for. A phone call ensued a few days later, which put everything in place. We need to hold onto that, and reinforce the importance of conversation with our children and students. Can we have those conversations within the context of social media is the question.

As a very bad social media user, I hardly spend any time interacting with people online in the normal social channels. However, I have had more experience with online dating, which I view as a form of social media. I suppose that my mild usage of facebook and instagram have allowed me to stay in touch or up-to-date on what is going on with friends and family. If it weren’t for the occasional post, I probably wouldn’t talk to many of them since I’m more of an introvert. However, I have spent more time talking to people through online dating than I do in the normal social media sites. So, I think in that respect, I think using social media has made me a little more outgoing in certain social situations in the real world. I wouldn’t say that social media has affected me professionally as far as I can tell. Although, I recently received an email and a call from a recruiter about a job via LinkedIn, which was not something I had experienced before. It is neat that we live in a world where people can connect with others they don’t know whether it is via meetups, dating, jobs, or just finding new friends.

Danielle, I really like your observations about social media, because I find that it is so often the truth! So many people use social media to connect with others, then get caught up with what they've said, not what others are saying. I'll run with it further, for example, 'Johnny' is posting his status on Facebook. Now he has people posting to his post or liking his post, but Johnny sees what he's posted over and over again, every time someone makes a change or adds a comment. He's self-reflecting every time. And honestly, he doesn't know how many people will actually be able to see his post. Rather, he just wants to get it off his chest and boast to the world about his grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. It's a time for self-meditation and reflection. Interesting.

My school had a very strict policy on the use of personal electronics in the classroom, even in computer labs, the chat option was often disabled, so I must say that I have no experience with social media in the class. In terms of my own experience, I embarked on Facebook simply as a means to keep in touch with my friends (as calling to do something was passe), as a result, my yearly review on facebook consisted of a single picture. I am not very active on social media, except for the MET. I often wonder if we are misusing social media, It is a tool to connect and share ideas, I find that used more and more to look at oneself.

I currently teach grade 5 where all of the students are too young to legitimately hold a Facebook account, and most are not allowed on other social media apps. That said, they are very proficient at texting each other and using chat features of the different online games they play (Animal Jam, Club Penguin, etc.) Personally, social media has not changed the dynamic in the classroom, although if more kids were allowed on social media, I have no doubt that it would. To answer the first question, I feel that social media has cheapened the communication I have with others. Rarely now do people "wait to tell something important that happened to them", but rather post it to Facebook, let the whole world know and glean a few likes. The same goes for texting with those people that are closer to us. We can share any silly thought that crosses our mind instantaneously. Thoughts that we wouldn't have shared 10 years ago as we probably would have forgotten them by the time we actually got to have a meaningful conversation with a specific person. While I am weary of oversharing in text and social media, I often see others on Facebook who share seemingly ever detail about their lives. Details that often might be better reserved for family members of close friends, and shared in person. I see venture opportunities in remote towns and countries with internet access issues. However, I see this market having a fairly short shelf life as a number of tech giants are now focusing on getting better internet access to those without it. I would predict that with advances in technology and different private business initiatives that 'intranet' focused learning ventures could be profitable for the next 5 years, and expire after that.