Great News: NSBA Report on Social Networking

The National School Boards Association published a report in July, 2007, to communicate their stance on social networking for education.  The report, called "Creating and Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social - and Educational -Networking," is posted on their website, http://files.nsba.org/creatingandconnecting.pdf.  All educators need to read this report. 

81% of the students surveyed (1,277 students ages 9-17) have used a social networking website sometime over the past three months, and almost 60% report discussing educational topics on social networking sites.  Yet the vast majority of school districts ban social networking during the school day, even though students and parents report few problem behaviors on-line.

The stance of NSBA is "Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression....but students may learn these lessons better while they are actually using social networking tools."  NSBA is seeking a balance between protecting students and providing a 21st century education.

From my experiences working with teachers, I find that the general perception of online social networking is that it is bad, scary, and has nothing to do with education.  However, I find that this thinking is due to having had no experiences with social networking.  The 60 teachers who joined me in a Web 2.0 usergroup have now had positive experiences with social networking for their own professional development and learning.  Once teachers discover the fun, exciting, motivating, and powerful learning that can result as a result of online social networking, they hopefully will take the risk to allow their students to learn using social networking tools.  There are safe tools to use.... Moodle comes to mind. 

Does anyone have other ideas about how we can keep our students safe while allowing them to use the social networking tools that are such a huge part of their lives?  How else can we help teachers and administrators overcome their fears about social networking?

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