The My Face Revolution
Presentation number two was in regards to the two most popular social networking websites on the World Wide Web to date, and it started out with a rather fantastic video clip. I think what made it fantastic was my knowledge of facebook and the features which were being represented and taken off within the video clip.
Social networking sites have become increasingly popular since the rise of such websites as MySpace and Facebook. What the girls highlighted in this presentation which I was previously unaware of was just who is behind these large communities filled with many an unawares internetian publishing all sorts of information without a care in the world as to who might be able to access or use this data (or sell it perhaps?). Some of the people involved in these ventures surprised me to an extent and I think I am now a bit more wary as to exactly what I advertise to the world about my personal life and self. Although, I should mention that I was already one of the more careful ones of us out there.
While there were some inventive ways discussed by which students could use these websites for educational purposes, such as creating a MySpace profile for a fairytale character, I personally believe that there are other methods which can be used more effectively for these activities which are equally technology-based.
While I am a member of both of these websites, and use them for personal use, I just don’t really think that they should be involved in the classroom in an official manner. I see nothing wrong with using such websites to communicate with past or even present students, however this should also be done carefully as we need to remain good role models and the content of some people’s facebook and myspace pages leads to questions about what they portray to students as appropriate behaviour during school hours and what they get up to when school is no longer in.
All this being said, I will not completely throw these types of websites on the “never use in class” pile, but rather watch their development carefully and reconsider as new advances come to light. Who knows, they may come up with something that could be much more suited to classroom use in the very near future!
