The great debate! To facebook/twitter or not!! I personally let my oldest daughter sign up for a facebook when she was 12, I think. I had her password and checked it frequently. She was my facebook friend and I had other family memebers checking on her as well. We had a few incidents where her friends were using language we did not approve of and strangers wanting to be her friend. Now, I have an 11 year old and she wants a facebook and I have not let her have one. After experiencing what I did with my oldest, I decided she should wait until she was 13 or starting high school.
Now, as a teacher, I teach second grade so of course we don't even consider that for them. We have sixth graders who have netbooks and use online learning this year. I still would not recommend facebook or twitter for them either. I feel there are other social media products, like wikispaces, that are made for the purpose of collaborating and communicating in school.
Even with wikispaces, we had students changing other's work or bullying online. The difference is I could monitor them very easily and handle the inappropriate situations. I don't feel that facebook and twitter were setup for school use, at least not elementary or middle school.
I would say in high school it would be fine, but there would be rules like allowing the teacher to be friends and see posts. The normal monitoring. I also think the parents should have a say in whether they want their child to have those accounts.
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