We cannot talk about Web 2.0 without addressing the issue of privacy. Many of us have had the experience of talking about a product and then being inundated with ads for that product on our phones. If we are to look for ways to incorporate social media into education, especially on the K-12 level, we need to figure out how to maintain the privacy of our students. I grew up in the era of stranger danger. My parents and I had a safe word in case they needed to send someone to pick me up from school. Houses in the neighborhood had signs in the window that showed kids where to run in case of danger. The internet expands the world, but with that comes the danger of exposing students to people outside of their neighborhood that might not have their best interest at heart. The problem is you can't put all the demons back into Pandora's Box. So how do we tame the demons and make them work for us?
Umm, excuse me Governor Desantis but last year you said that you had a issue with standardized testing. I was like okay, this is a cause that I can get behind. The way we are currently using standardized test in the education system is abhorrent. In many cases these tests are the only measure of student and teacher success. Standardized tests don't allow us to celebrate the small wins. If a student read 2 books last year and 15 books this year, that's a win. If you learned to write your name in cursive, that's a win. If you know how to divide or understand fractions that's a win. I don't care what the test says. When did kids become standardized. My oldest daughter could read before she went to kindergarten. Her sister learned to read in kindergarten. My son could read when he was four. They all turned out just fine. Kids are not standardized. I was excited to hear that we were doing away with the FSA. As an educator, I felt like someone was finally paying attent...
I have this conversation with my teenage children so often, almost to the point they really don't trust social media! Social media can be such a useful tool, but there's always those out there turn useful tools into a means to destroy individuals. It seem to boil down to going back to basics, the "don't talk to strangers" aspect of social media.
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