Pew Internet & American Life Project for the Family Online Safety Institute
and Cable in the Classroom--concluded that "[m]ost American teens who use social
media say that in their experience, people their age are mostly kind to one
another on social network sites." Nearly seven in ten (69 percent) of teens said
that peers are mostly kind while 20 percent said peers are mostly unkind with 11
percent saying, "it depends."
Regardless, of the particular curriculum, I believe that each student should be able to use the technology to accomplish the following three basic tasks:
We cannot continue on the current path of education if we want to prepare our children for their future. Our children will not live in the world that we grew up in. We need to prepare them to be flexible, critical thinking, problem solvers.
Children’s days are over-scheduled with sports, arts, functions and additional classes. Yet the need to connect and socialize has not gone away in these overly adult-managed times.
Many of the young people interviewed here said they would actually rather be hanging out with friends in real spaces than posting updates in online spaces, but the hemmed-in reality of their lives makes that nearly impossible.
We teachers are not “digital immigrants.” We are their guides, and our role, along with parents, has never been more important, nor more complicated.