Social networking has proven to become a popular past time for anyone who has participated in one of the several websites that offer this capability. Social networking for personal use has revolutionized how people interact and connect to the outside world. Without question, Facebook is arguably the most iconic social networking site with millions of people interacting on a daily basis. Using sites such as Facebook for personal use in my opinion is an excellent way to use technology. There are concerns with social networking sites/media for personal use and most of the concern centers around privacy issues. While the majority of social networking sites have privacy options for the user to set in place, it is still difficult to control what people post and write on your own site. This unfortunately can lead to embarrassing moments for users and sometimes can even lead to criminal chargers depending on the circumstance. By and large, if users browse, interact, and connect in a responsible manner, social networking for personal use is outstanding.
On the educational side, social networking sites/media have provided an extra resource/option for distance education. Students can setup their own personal blogs and share their blogs with fellow students/teachers. As evident in this course, using blogs is an efficient means to assign a topic where students can informally post and reply to other students. The blog sites bring the interactivity from a resident classroom course to an online distance education course. The gap that is bridged demonstrates one of the benefits of social networking in an educational setting. To go along with some of the discussion regarding social networking sites in the classroom, I believe teachers have to be cautious with sites such as Facebook because of the privacy issues. Teachers can be innovative with social networking sites/media in the classroom however, it is important to understand the risks that are involved.
