Social media is becoming more and more popular for everyone. A lot of people use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube every day. Also in the working context the use of social media for branding and marketing is increasing. Equally, the use of social media inside a company (intranet), especially in international operating companies, is increasing. Choo et al. (2006) found that an information culture in companies increases its output and efficiency a lot, if the workers take part actively. But Hargittai et al. (2008) found that some young people are not able to keep pace with this digital development or not interested. They don’t take part in social media, do not know how to use it and decrease their own chance to get a job. Therefore, it is very important that every young person learn to make use of social media and to deal responsibly with it as well. In my opinion it is a good idea to teach the application of social media in schools while integrating it into a lessons plan indirectly. Indirectly means that I want to think about integrating the use of social media in normal lessons. The use should become natural and normal. I would like to think about the use of social media in schools for pupils of the age 13-16. As an example, I choose the use of a Facebook group, because it is the most popular social network nowadays.
My text structure should be the following. First, I will write about the increasing importance of social media in the living and working context. Second, I will give a definition of social media. Third, I will outline the reasons, why every pupil should learn how to use social media by considering occurring issues in social media using companies. Based on that, I will develop a general framework of the possible application in schools. Afterwards, I will discuss benefits, challenges and risks of the use of a Facebook group in schools. At least, I will discuss the requirements of implementing a Facebook group for a class and its’ teacher.
Increasing importance of social media in the working and living context
Briggle and Mitcham (2009) claim that the change of providing information in the digital age is transforming our culture. Because of the centrality of information, there is no longer just information but rather an information culture. People create information in social media about themselves or other topics. Other people can use this information and get a lot of new possibilities to get knowledge. But this phenomenon is not any longer new or an innovation. It is becoming more and more natural to use information, the internet is providing. Our culture is acculturating with that but some entities are not able to keep pace. (Briggle and Mitcham 2009) For example, teaching the proper use of social media in schools is nearly immaterial. But the importance handling social media in our working and living context is increasing quickly. Many researchers examine the impact of social media on society, companies and individuals.
Especially for the working context, a lot of studies exist about the impact of social media. (e.g. Ford and Mason 2013a) The majority of researchers is supporting the positive impact of social media at the working place. You can find some journalistic articles like “five myths and realities about using social media in your company” written by Meiser and Willyerd (2010) which support the use of social media in companies. They emphasize some positives impacts of social media like an increasing Return on Investment but also that you need some effort to integrate social media into your company. Equally, there are a huge amount of academic articles which supporting the use of social media as well. For example Ford and Mason (2013b) investigate on the one hand an existing of a small tension between knowledge management and social media but on the other hand a lot of synergies. The danger for tension increases when there is a trend for rigidity inside an organization. If companies can handle the rigidity, social media and knowledge management support each other and create more value. The most important interface is therefore the group- or teamlevel inside a company. (Ford and Mason 2013b) Other research examines that social media is very helpful to overcome cross-cultural barriers inside international companies. (Ray 2013) Because of those many positive findings, there is also a lot of research about integrating and managing the social media in companies. For example Peters et al. (2013) present a whole manager tool kit for constructing and managing social media in a company. They developed a whole theoretical framework about social media, which consists of the elements: motives, content, network structure and social roles & interactions. Based on that framework, they presented nine guidelines for integrating social media into a company. (Peters et al. 2013) Furthermore, Choo et al. (2006) found that a well information management and an information culture increase the output and efficiency of a company a lot. However, the influence of the information culture is way bigger than the information management. The meaning of that is that value creating is usually up to the employees, which are supporting an information culture or not. To define a well working information culture and understand the influence, the authors determine four values: sharing, proactiveness, transparency and informality. In the investigated company, the sharing and proactiveness of the employees had the biggest effect on the outcome. Those findings emphasize the increasing need of an information culture in companies and therefor an increasing need for employees which support an information culture. (Choo et al. 2006)
But in the living context, the importance of social media is increasing as well. The population, who is using social media privately, is increasing quickly. (Meister and Willyerd 2010) Though, there are less firm guidelines and rules for using social media. The big social media companies change their security terms often and less people are able to understand everything that happens with their data. Security of data, the digital footprint and what to share and what not to share are relative new topics for our society. You can find a lot of research about some recommendations, guidelines, etc. addressing those issues. Parents should teach their children how to deal with their data. (e.g. O’Keffe et al. 2011) However, that indicated some possible problems. For example, some Parents are not able to teach their children in social media or not interested. Moreover, you can consider that just telling is not very effective.
Definition of social media
Before thinking about integrating social media into school life of children, I would like to clarify some terms about social media and the focus of this essay. Social media allows people to develop and maintain social relationships and embraces different tools for that. A lot of definitions and differentiations for social media and its’ components do exist. I want to use the definitions of Hemsley and Mason (2013) which distinguish three various types of social media. On the one hand, there are tools which allow users to self-publish themselves by sharing knowledge with anyone who has similar interests. Those tools are for example blogs or platforms like YouTube or Flickr. On the other hand there are tools where people (friends or strangers) collaborate with each other to create knowledge. A big and well known example for those tools is the webpage Wikipedia. And last but not least, there are platforms which allow people to connect their own profiles with other profiles to build and maintain large social networks. Platforms which enable people to build a social network are for example LinkedIn or Facebook. (Hemsley and Mason 2013)
Why should everyone learn the use of social media at early age?
There are some reasons why every pupil should learn how to use social media in schools. For my consideration, I would like to focus on the working context. Especially on the social media behavior of employees that is able to increase or decrease the value of companies. An important aspect is that employees represent their company in social media platforms directly and indirectly. Whether be responsible for the official representation of a company or just the way an employee acts on his private profiles. Both can be very important for the reputation of the company, the employee is working for. (Rokka et al. 2013) Likewise the acting inside a company that is using a social media platform to create some work content or do (international) team work online is becoming more important. Especially for group work sessions, the use of social media provides more value for a company. (Ford and Manson 2013b) Similarly argue Choo et al. (2006) that it is more important that employees are able and like to use the social media to create more value. (Choo et al. 2006)
In my opinion, the social media that a company uses is a combination of a social network and a collaborative work platform. However, before thinking about the integration into schools, it could be helpful first to think about general benefits and risks of social networking sites and wikis for organizations and individuals. There is no doubt that social network sites foster people to share their personal knowledge. They facilitate communication and support the creation of enriched people. That makes the exchange of knowledge easier within organizations. For individuals, the social networks offer the possibility to share personal knowledge. It is easier to promote own projects and the work of individuals becomes more comprehensible for superiors. That can support career advancement. Moreover, social networking sites facilitate keeping up with colleagues and looser work connections. In contrast, the social networking entails some risks as well. The biggest disadvantage of social networking is probably the time consumption. There is a risk that employees spend a lot of time just for non-value-adding activities like huge conversations with close colleagues. Furthermore, the sustainability of the social network and the engagement of employees need to be ensured. And as mentioned, the risk of sensitive information disclosure needs to be handled. Similarly provide the wiki platforms some benefits and risks. A wiki is a great possibility for an organization to offer the collective mind of an organization. For individuals it starts like a personal knowledge management system. With increasing participation the employees have the possibility to share knowledge as for example lessons learned or problems with others (e.g. a special customer). Even for new employees it is a great possibility to learn a lot about the company and understand the daily business or special treatments. Furthermore wikis help to increase the motivation of employees because they see that they have an impact on the company. Those facilitate the collaboration inside an organization a lot. It is easier to capture (special) knowledge or experiences of employees and the organization becomes more flexible. However, there are some problems as well. Likewise to social networking to create content in wikis is time consuming for individuals. It could be very exhausting to find updated information or keep information updated. Another important issue is the law about intellectual property rights. For example, what happens with the information and data, if an employee leaves the company? To keep a wiki alive inside a company, it is very important that the company has active contributors and that the wiki is sustainable. Another important critical issue is the quality of the entries or point of view of the author. Maybe the expectations of the contributors are different. Furthermore the frame of the wiki is important. What about searching and finding issues or a structuring of the content. (Razmerita et al. 2014)
This short overview explains that social media offer a lot of chances for companies to improve their outcome. However, there are also some limitations and risks. Hence, in my opinion it is very important for companies that their employees know how to handle social media and can use it efficiently. The other way around, it is very important for young people to learn the efficient use of social media to increase their chances to get a job. I think, the handling of social media will become a soft skill like rhetorical skills, which will be required to get a job. Some can argue that every young person knows social media and can handle it. Against this are the findings of the research of Hargittai and Walejko (2008). They examine if there is an existing of a participation divide between users of social media. The authors present the findings of a previous research study that children from a higher socioeconomic status are more likely to take part in social media than those with a low status. For their own research, Hargittai and Walejko (2008) observed the behavior of first-year students from the University of Illinois, Chicago that represents a varied family and cultural background. Likewise to the previous study, they found that students with a lower socioeconomic status are less likely to take part actively in social media. Moreover, the rate of students which create content is usually around 60%. That contains that around 40% of the students did not take part actively. Furthermore the authors found that the web user skills have a big impact on the participation of the students. (Hargittai and Walejko 2008) Those finding indicate that there is a need to make young persons to use social media and develop their skills.
In my opinion, it is a good way to integrate social media into schools life to prevent missing experience, engagement or knowledge of future employees. Because it is easier to integrate the collaborative aspect into a social network than the way around, I want to focus on integrating the use of a social network tool into school lessons. While thinking about integrating a social network tool into school lessons, you have to consider some things.
General framework of the use of a social media tool in schools
First, I want to think about the right age to introduce children to social media. The age requirement of the most popular social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) is 13 years. (e.g. Facebook 2014a) Hence, I think schools should start teaching children from 13 years on. Of course, you can complain 13 years is too young. But in my opinion, it is a better way that teachers (and parents) discover the social media world with young children together officially than having the risk that a child does it alone secretly.
Another important aspect is the existing of different societies and school systems around the world. To explain every school system and society around the world would go beyond the scope of the discussion, so I decided to focus on the European school systems. Although the school systems and societies are varying across Europe, there are enough similarities to talk about Europe in general. The compulsory education in Europe ends earliest in Croatia (14 years). In the other European countries it varies usually between 15 and 16 years or later. Therefore, I want to focus on grades, in which children are usually 13-16 years old. (European Commission 2014) Of course, the societies across Europe differ from each other. However, I think the topic related values about freedom of expression and using of social networks are quite similar. Many European people use social networking sites and there are no bans existing like in China.
Furthermore, there is the issue of the right platform to use. The most companies develop own platforms to collaborate and communicate. You can consider that schools can develop their own platforms as well, but I do not think that that would be reasonable. Schools do not have the capabilities and skills to develop a well working platform. Moreover, schools do not have the need for a professional platform to share work content, secret plans and so on. In my opinion, it would be enough to use an existing third-party platform. Of course, there are many platforms which offer social networking tools. And because digital tools are becoming outdated very fast in this time, it is very important to keep pace and choose a tool that is still relevant for young people. So, I would recommend the use of one of the most popular platforms at this time. One of the most popular platforms in this period is Facebook. Therefore, I want to think about of the use of Facebook in schools nowadays. Certainly, you can argue that the use of Facebook is a bad idea, because of some scandals about security of data and the security of data and Facebook in general. However, in my opinion the use of Facebook is a very good way to teach the risks of social networking platforms and foster the awareness of what to share and what not to share. Another advantage of Facebook is the fast and easy reachability. It is very easy for the teacher to reach the whole class for important or quick announcements and the way around.
Another point is the integration of the use of Facebook into school lessons. There are different options. On the one side, you can integrate the use of Facebook into the entire running of a school. Every teacher and pupil can use Facebook during the lessons, during the breaks and/or after school. On the other side you can integrate Facebook in just one subject. In my mind scenario, I would like to do the second option and integrate the use of Facebook into a digital-related subject like computer application or computer science.
The next step is thinking about the way of integration into a subject. Here, I would like to consider integrating the usage of the group function of Facebook into normal lessons as the main topic. The group function (def. required?) combines the usage of a big popular social network platform with a small version of an intranet that companies use. The teacher and pupils are able to share content like important links or subject-related questions without disturbing other Facebook users. Furthermore, the teacher can use the upload function of pictures, documents and videos to make the pupils do for example some homework online. The group can work like an easier version of the kind of network, which companies use. However, there is still the big popular platform that offers that service. It offers benefits like an existing App and fast notifications as well as risks like an insecure of shared data.
Chances, Challenges and Risks
After defining those basic conditions, I would like to amplify the chances, challenges and risks of a use of Facebook in schools. On the one hand, there are some advantages by using a Facebook group. It is very easy for the teacher to reach the entire class even after school or at the weekend, because usually the children use Facebook in their free time as well. That facilitates the announcement of quick or important information. When the teacher is for example sick on Sunday and there should be a test on Monday, the teacher can easily post into the group that the test will be postponed. The way around it works as well. If the children have some questions about for example homework, they can easily ask the teacher and classmates in the group. It is also a good feedback for the teacher to get to know what was clear and unclear during the lesson. Furthermore, the group encourages the socialization and communication skills of every member. The pupils learn how they can share content, possible reactions and dealing with it. Moreover, they learn how to collaborate and support each other to create content like the ways companies do. And that enhance new learning opportunities. The pupils and teacher can share further information like important links or discuss about some work tasks or topics and so on. That fosters creativity, discussion skills and the awareness of benefits of collective knowledge sharing. And there are some other advantages besides the group. Because the teacher has to be friend with all of his pupils, it is a great chance for the teacher to act as role model in social networking behavior. The pupils can see how their teacher acts in social networks and learn from his behavior and sharing behavior. (O’Keeffe 2011, Razmerita 2014, Facebook 2014b)
On the other hand, there are some risks and challenges. An important issue is the competence of the teacher to handle a Facebook group and a social networking profile. Nowadays, there is a gap between digital natives and some teacher which are not as competent with digital media or social media as their pupils. Before starting the project Facebook group into a class it should be ensured that the teacher knows the right usage and behavior by using social media. Therefore, Facebook offers for example some ‘educate yourself’ services. (Facebook 2014b) However, it could also be useful for the teacher to try the functions of Facebook before establishing the group. Also, teacher can read and use some more critical and independent sources about Facebook or everything that help to enable themselves to rule a Facebook group successful. An additional already mentioned aspect is the sensitivity of data and the digital footprint. It is important that teacher and pupils are aware that everything they share is not a big secret. Facebook can use and have a look into the posted data or classmates can do screenshots and show posts etc. Furthermore, the teacher has to be friend with his pupils to invite them into the group. That indicates that the teacher will see everything the pupils do. You can argue on the one hand that teacher should not invade pupils’ privacy but on the other hand, that is a good possibility to show that there is no broad privacy in social networks. Another important issue is the problem of psychically troubles occurring in Facebook like cyber bullying or Facebook depression. But the fact that the teacher will be friend with every pupil can maybe prevent troubles like this. The teacher will see what his pupils are doing and get maybe a better understanding of what happens in his class. (O’Keeffe 2011) Another danger is the problem of the two extremes of participation. On the one side there is the possibility that no one or just a few pupils take part in the Facebook group. Most of the pupils do not use Facebook, do not look into the group or ignore the group in the worst case. On the other side there is the danger that the group waste a lot of time of the children and/or the teacher. Moreover, the constant presence of the Facebook group can stress the participants. You can argue free time is free time and school time is school time. The same applies for the working time of the teacher. But in my opinion, there is the same problem in peoples working life nowadays. The permanent presence of the employer because of social media, smartphones, etc. in the private life of employees stresses also adults a lot. Maybe it is a good experience for pupils and teacher to handle that problem together. However, it could be a good idea to develop guidelines and rules in the beginning to prevent those possible occurring problems. (Lerman 2007, O’Keeffe 2011)
Requirements for implementing a Facebook group for a class & teacher
The general framework and chances, challenges and risks of the integration of a Facebook group into school lessons are considered. Now, I would like to think about concrete requirements for the implementation of the group into the running of a school. First, it is very important for the teacher to know the policies of his school about social media. It is a good idea to consult the school administration and headmaster to clarify potential conditions and terms. Furthermore, in the beginning of the project, the teacher should consider a parents’ evening to inform the parents that the children will start using Facebook. He can answer occurring questions, clarify problems and explain the reasons and benefits of that step. (Facebook 2014b)
Second, the teacher should think about the introduction and beginning of his project. I would recommend that the teacher can start with an introduction workshop (e.g. during the computer science lesson). The teacher can explain the way of using Facebook and the Facebook group during the lessons and after the lessons. He can do some sign-ups with pupils which do not know or do not have Facebook. Furthermore, the teacher can explain what to share and what not to share as well as the importance of acting on own web profiles with care. Then he can explain the weekly way of use. For example that the pupils are supposed to post their homework in the group or comment on some posted topics of the teacher. There is a wide range of possibilities for the teacher to use the group. From normal posts through to uploaded videos is everything imaginably and at least up to the teacher. After the successful integration of the Facebook group, the teacher can think about some on-topic workshops regarding the Facebook group or Facebook in general. Possible topics are for example the security of data and the digital footprint. Maybe it is possible to use some example of pupils which handle their data with care. Another option is to introduce some functions of Facebook to show the pupils to protect themselves. For example the ‘Restricted’ list for Facebook friends that enable the pupil to hide some information and/or posts from more official persons like their teacher.
Third, it is important to determine some rules to take care that the pupils participate in a way that is useful but not stressful. To ensure the participation, the teacher could implement for example a digital mark that is up-to the pupils’ participation into the group. Another possible rule to prevent stress could be for example that pupils do not have to post more than one entry/comment per week to get the best mark. Other important rules could be about social behavior, manners and values.
Finally, when a teacher considers all that mentioned things, is able to deal with social media and handle the group and his pupils with care, the implementation of a Facebook group could be a very useful project. I think the use could enrich the lessons and skills of the pupils a lot. Even the grading would become more transparent. Furthermore, the group would be a great training for pupils to manage the use of social media in companies and develop their social and digital skills. Moreover, the pupils would become aware of the advantages of participation and collaboration in group projects. All in all, it would prepare them well for the use of social media at the working place as mentioned in the beginning.
By and large you have been taken up an important issue for our today’s youth. Your paper is well structured and it became clear what you would like to focus on. What I really liked was your effort to give suggestions how social media could be implemented and integrated in school teaching. However, it was not always completely clear to me whether some statements were based on your own opinion or some fundamental research. But on the whole I think your topic is quite interesting and important and you have tried to provide some helpful aspects that need further consideration. Good luck with further proceedings!
You describe the influence social media has from your own point of view with references to given literature so that the reader can follow your thoughts very easily. The connection from using these computer tools in school and the need for that in regard to the job these people might have in the future shows the importance of handling social media content correctly from a small age. The only things I did miss were the bibliography in the end and the numbering of each paragraph. But since this is only the draft that is not a big remark. At the end you are clarifying both sides of social media- benefits and danger in a very good and structured way. I enjoyed reading it! Well done!!