Facebook, MySpace, Delicious, Flickr, Ning, Bebo, Friendster…

Did I get your attention? Great! That is exactly the idea. And take a look at this site and you will see even more (http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/2008-social-network-analysis-report/). But for the library media specialist of today, the question is: should we integrate these sites into our instructional endeavors, and if so, how do we do it keeping in mind the many guidelines to which we are held?

So what is all this online social networking anyway? A social network is simply a collection of the people we know. And through social linking, there is an extension of the chance of communication when the people you know communicate with the people they know and they, then, communicate with the people they know, and well, you get the picture. It is a great big network of people and we are all just a bunch of nodes (remember the networking example?).

Before an analysis of how this might help us in the school systems, let’s take a look at some of the downsides and fears of social networking. Some of those which will be briefly discussed in this blog are as follows: The one that comes to the fore most often is that of online predators. It is true that this happens and that we hear about it in the news, but honestly, it was happening long before the trend of social-networking came to be so ubiquitous.

Another fear is that users are putting way too much personal information out there for the world to see and that this is leading to I.D. theft. Agreed. But here again, our students must be well-informed of the consequences of what they post on these social-networking sites.

Mostly recently there is a rampant fad going on among teens called “sexting” whereby these young people take nude pictures of themselves with the technologies at hand (cell phones, webcams, etc.) and post them on these social networking sites. This has even led to very young teenagers being subject to criminal offenses under the auspices of Megan’s law (see http://www.expertlaw.com/library/criminal/megans_law.html) . Even Megan’s mother herself does not agree with this! But we can be instrumental in education our young people here.

Certainly we have read the stories of cyberbullying, mostly when it involves beautiful young women. But again, this is becoming a greater news item because of the fact that we have such wonderful means of communicating via the web.

Enough of the negative here; this is where the kids thrive, and they do so voluntarily. So let’s take advantage of this environment and use it as a powerful opportunity to promote and celebrate our library media centers. Let’s become familiar with these social networking sites, use them and understand them as fully as we are able so as to educate our students about the possibility of creating a purposeful community (Lefkowitz, 2008) where true sharing of ideas and interactive learning can take place. When we know what WE are doing, we can more easily recognize the nonconformist.

In Library 2.0 and Beyond, Brian Mathews walks us through the steps of setting up a MySpace account keeping in mind that it is set up as an educator account. And Barbara Fiehn gives us us a wonderful list of OPACs that incorporate social-networking into their web foundation. David Warlick’s name frequently appears when researching the benefits of social-networking and there are more hits than one can ever read on the subject on the LM_Listserv.

Some ideas then? Let’s use Flickr for uploading pictures from a social studies project, such as the fifth grade Cumberland Island trip. We can make a class scrapbook and collaboratively share our experiences. Just give permission only to the class members to view the jpegs. Let’s use the tags on Delicious to do a research project on…..well, on social networking for example. Let’s do a literary study of 19th Century British authors using LibraryThing. And if any of you have not seen imbee, take a look! This site is truly directed towards younger, elementary-age students with even stricter stipulations on authentication.

This is a topic that will always stir up some feathers, but let’s try our best to keep our ears and eyes open when it comes to these upcoming trends so that we can continue to be cultural partners (Mathews, 2007) in the learning community.