Social Networks

I am still astounded at the number of children under the age of 13 years old who have social network accounts.  When I was a child, my parents guarded me against people who they thought might be harmful to me.  I was told off in public spaces when I misbehaved and had a tanty when I did not get my way.  Now that we have an online as well as face to face community, are you as parents looking out for your children in their online space?

Don't get me wrong, I see huge value in having access to social media but how are we teaching our young children and teens how to behave in this space?  In the past adults have been in the same physical space as children and we have reprimanded inappropriate behaviour.  In today's world, are you in the same cyberspace as your teens and children?  

How can we teach the concept of social media and the value it holds yet not expose our younger children to third party online lurkers?  

Aimie is teaching year 7 & 8 students in our Middle School and she has introduced one of her classes to how Twitter works.  This class has taken the concept of twitter and they have re-created a Twitter page on their classroom wall.  Aimie has cleverly modelled this on a book that the class is studying. Students use the limit of 140 characters to summarise a chapter from the book.  The tweets are there for all to see as the wall borders our break-out space so invokes lots of discussion too.