Chapter 3

How is social networking affecting education?

Social networking has become so much the norm, for adults and children alike, so it is interesting to learn that there are many positive yet negative affects social networking has on education.  Before even reading our assigned chapter, I jotted down a few of my thoughts about this question.  Children that spend their time on social networking sites take their abbreviations commonly used on them and they are now making it into coursework, essays and experiment write-ups.  Maybe this has a lot to do with our what I like to call “our spelling error generation”.  Many of us are guilty of having facebook or twitter and we have seen how some people become very addicted to posting their latest status, their latest picture, or even obsessed with seeing what other people are doing.  Arguments that happen between children in the classroom could extend and worsen when they get home through these networks.  Cyber-bullying has become our country norm.  On the other hand, Bitter explains in our readings some of the positive aspects of social networking, classes can even participate in telementoring projects, have conferences on the web, and our pen pals that we once had in school are now out the window.  Remember it would take a month to hear back from your penpal in another country?  Well now you could hear back from your key-pal in a matter of seconds.