Social Media- Week 2

 

 

Hi all you wonderful people!!

 

  

 

 

 

My name is Lexi Heavilin. The picture is of me and my boyfriend of 3 and a half years, Geoff. There are a lot of ways I could tell you about who I am, so I'll stick with the basics. I am a second year Early Education student here at the University of Akron. I am a Resident Assistant in South Residence Hall. I have had a little bit of interaction with children in the classroom, but I am very excited to be able to have more interactions soon. When I tell people what field I am going into they have one of two reactions: #1 "Oh, how sweet you will love that age!" #2 "I could never do that, good luck." I just laugh at both reactions because it doesn't matter what people think, I will love going to work every day!

 

 

Social Media

 

 

Social media is ever present in our everyday life now. I am willing to understand that my 2nd and 3rd graders will probably have some sort of social media by the time I start teaching. But for me if I had to rank my social media accounts with #1 being the one I spend the most time on it would be:

1. Instagram

2. Facebook

3. GroupMe

4. Pinterest

5.  SnapChat

6. Twitter

 

In the article A Teenagers View on Social Media Andrew Watts provides good insight on how teenagers use and think about social media. Personally as a 20 year old who has a variety of different social media accounts, I would have to agree with a lot of what he had to say. He talks about the pros and cons of the major social media sites that young people use today. When I am using any social media, I stay on the safe side with my activity. I think young people have trouble understanding  that future employers can and most of the time will look at all their accounts to see what image they are sending out to the rest of the world. Young people just need to post and share things that will make them look good and professional. When it comes to using social media in the classroom, I think that it is fun, different, and I know the children would love to take part in it. You could have Twitter, for example, as a platform for the children to communicate and share ideas. The students could even tweet the teacher with the answer to what they are doing in class that day. The capabilities are endless when getting the students involved in the cyber world, and in turn getting the students excited about learning.