Teaching Good Social Media Conduct in the Classroom

Like it or not, Social Media Platforms like Facebook & Twitter have become a fundamental way in which young people CHOOSE to communicate. You’ll notice I’m emphasising the word ‘choose’ because of how central in our lives technological communication has become. This is increasingly the case in education, where many Apps targeted towards learning use and integrate social media platforms.

So in regard to the CyberBullying issue and incidents, where does the responsibility lie – in terms of teaching students responsible use of social media. With many parents feeling out of depth with Social Media should the responsibility fall to schools to teach good social media conduct in the classroom?

Here’s what I think. I believe that teaching our children positive and responsible use of social media is a duty of care for both parents and educators.

Like it or not, our children communicate via social media. Technology has become very much a part of modern childhood and can be very valuable in a child’s learning development. I believe that teaching Children & young people how to use Social Media Responsible can help tackle CyberBullying and other crimes, which are committed in a digital space. It’s my belief that before we just allow our children to freely access the Internet & use Social Platforms we need to ensure they have a solid understanding of appropriate behaviour online and what constitutes acceptable usage of technology.

The creation of an informal partnership is one route forward which I think could make a real difference. This could work in a very simple and straightforward way with Parents, Educators & Policy Makers working together to help shape a learning policy, not only for children but for Parents, Educators and those involved within Government. This learning opportunity would be provided so that everyone involved within the partnership gets the chance to understand appropriate online behaviour, what constitutes acceptable usage of technology and pass this knowledge on – almost like a knowledge transfer program.

It is by taking these steps that we can truly start to tackle the problem of negative and inappropriate online behaviour and CyberBullying and start to make the digital space which our children frequent on a daily basis, a much safer place for be.  For more information please checkout my ebook available here by clicking here

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