The first article I read on mashable.com was called "4 tips for integrating social media into the classroom". It talks about the rules and regulations that should be enforced, or lightened upon for the usage of social media networks in children's schools. This article is definitely important and relevant to our class because this is basically what our class is. It is an hour and fifteen minute period that is solely dedicated to the use of new types of media. The difference is that we are not between the ages of 5-13, and can look at the information much differently and more scholarly.
Social media networks are rapidly increasing their demographics and are now working their way into elementary school systems. I think there are a few advantages and a couple disadvantages to this. One advantage is that elementary school is the first stepping stone into the real world, and whether teachers and principles like it or not social media networks are what the "real world" is becoming. Even very high end companies are doing business over facebook, and even our president tweets. So where it might seem like they are all for fun and games students could really start to learn the value of these sites and how useful they can be; something I did not have the advantage of learning until this class. A disadvantage is that students may get distracted with the fluff side of these sites as oppose to the serious side. A solution that may help fix that is to give the students maybe a ten minute "recreational use" time at the end of class, after they have done what they were supposed to in class. However, I think the advantages way out the disadvantages because kids at that age will always try and beat the system no matter what subject of school it is, but I think its important for them to retain as much knowledge about these sites as possible while young because social media is our future and so are these kids.
The second article I read from mashable.com was called "Facebook status updates show which countries are happiest". I found this article to be really interesting and an example of how social media networks can be a good thing. It relates to other apps we have seen in class such as what word everyone is tweeting, or the one (I don't remember the name!) where you can put your mouse over a place and a picture that was uploaded from that area shows up. I think its great the way we collect all different kinds of data like this. Although some of it may seem virtually useless right now I think there is a lot that can be done with it in the future. An example of how status's have been positive is though most facebook status's are nonsense or song lyrics, some are for good causes. I have found out about a lot of charity events, or donations of sorts through peoples facebook status and have actually attended. I kind of went off on a tangent about status's, but I think my main idea about this article is that one mans trash is another mans treasure, and social scientists are probably having a field day with all the new kinds of data that is available to them through these social mediums. I think they should be, many people are afraid of technology but I think we should embrace it and use it for every advantage that we can.