Thing 14

What did you join? Why?
Social networking has become a part of many people's lives over the past several years. I am familiar with it and am a user of Facebook. Many of my relatives, college friends, high school friends, old neighbors, friends from teams that I've played sports on and friends that live out of state or even the country are "friends" of mine that I enjoy keeping in touch with via this "thing".

Has your opinion about social networking changed since working on this Thing? What do you see as the educational possibilities (if any) for social networking?
I feel that it is our responsibility as educators to teach our children about social networking. There is so much it has to offer, yet if used inappropriately the consequences could be devastating. This is "stuff" we need to talk about with our students. They need to be aware that their network behavior is an image they are portraying. Discussions around the fact that sometimes too, even the "friends" that we are associated with whose posts may be visible to everyone can represent content we are not necessarily in agreement with. This becomes a serious dilemma for many. I feel that it is necessary for us to protect ourselves and teach our students how to protect themselves when using social networking sites such as Facebook. It concerns me to hear that many students who use sites such as these accept or request friend requests from/to people they may not even know. This is extremely dangerous. We need to help our students become more aware of their responsibilities and our expectations of them as their teachers and parents when joining social networks.