Nice find by Christian Long of this short little blurb in Fast Company titled “Social Networking Evades Schools.” Seems NSBA surveyed schools and found that most don’t have a policy in place regarding the use of social networking sites, and, as you can probably guess, of those that do, most said the policy is to block access. Go figure. But the good news is that NSBA’s executive director seems to be getting it:

It is important to keep in mind that just blocking access to social web sites at school is not the end of the story. Most of the misuse of these sites takes place at home, but still affects the classroom. We have to teach our students about the safe and proper use of social web sites.

Well, that’s a start. Certainly, MySpace and Facebook should be in the curriculum to facilitate the conversation about everything that could go wrong. But what about to talk about everything that could go right? What about teaching them how to use social networking sites to connect to potential teachers, to publish their ideas, share content? What about making sure that they know how to leverage what MySpace offers?

The problem is that most educators still don’t “get” what these sites represent. But I found this excerpt of Steve Hargadon’s new podcast interview with Plano Assistant Superintendent Jim Hirsch to be spot on:

Our students of today, because of access to media, the internet, and instant messaging ‘no longer rely on a historical perspective to make decisions.’ The rely much more on their friends…

The social interactions that our students are having online are steeped in information gathering of one sort or another, as well they should be. Aren’t ours? Whether they know it or not, they need to understand the ins and outs of reputation networks and filters. And I’ll ask it again…who is teaching them?

From a parent perspective, I’ve started thinking about how social tools can be a part of my kids’ practice from early on. Yesterday, I set my seven and nine year old kids (and, um, myself) up with Club Penguin accounts, and in the context of doing so, we talked about what it means to be interacting with other real people online. Yes, they need to be careful, and we went through the don’ts. But they should also be willing to find friends to chat with, to play games with, to communicate with. When they’re old enough, I’ll help them set up their MySpace accounts, or whatever the social networking site du jour is. And I’ll also help them with del.icio.us and their blogs and whatever other online tools might serve them. (I just bought them their own .name domains yesterday…they’re gonna need a collection point.)

Point is, we have to do more than unblock. We have to do more than just teach them what not to do. We have to help them leverage the tools.

So, what’s in your policy?

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