The myth about social media in the classroom is that if you use it, kids will be Tweeting, Facebooking and Snapchatting while you’re trying to teach. We still have to focus on the task at hand. Don’t mistake social media for socializing. They’re different — just as kids talking as they work in groups or talking while hanging out are different.
– Viki Davis
We cannot put blinders on this issue. We HAVE to teach social media skills: it’s a key component to being a digital citizen.
Perhaps we fear teaching social media in the classroom because it’s a non-Newtonian medium: it’s a solid fluid, hard to create clearly parameters around it. However, that shouldn’t stop us from using it and teaching our students about it. If we don’t help collaborate with our students to learn about this medium together, they will be happy to define it without our input and then we will be the ones who are lost. I’d venture so far to say that we may already be in that position.
Regardless, here’s Viki Davis’ entire article.