We are in a very revolutionary period of education right now. Social media have the potential to completely turn the system on its head if we don't adapt.
Children have access to the internet in so many different venues, yet they just don't know what to do with it. For the most part, they have somewhat limited communications skills, yet they have numerous forums through which they can share ideas, collaborate, evaluate, inform, etc. This list just goes on and on!
Take this "Twitter Spectrum." What a productively meaningful way to merge relevant methods of literary analysis with current technology! This is a wonderful example of how our children are growing up. It is evident here that we can help them to use the technology at their fingertips to its utmost potential.
We still really have to work on the conventions of language however. Plenty of tweets run a muck through the English language. Twitter is also a prime example of how any language can get butchered via the abbreviating of word after word in order to say as much as one possibly can in 140 characters or less.
Now, I actually see lots of potential for wonderful vocabulary exercises that allow students to manipulate words (provided that they know how the words should be spelled in the first place), but I also see the potential for total obliteration of language, perhaps even linguistic Armageddon, if we educators do not keep our hands in the technology arena.
Social media and other technologies are not going anywhere. That's for sure. They will only permeate our lives more and more until they become an integral part of life. In fact, this stage is approaching quickly. It's imminent. The generation that can do without such things is depleting in most of the world, that is). They're our grandparents... our mentors... our wise benefactors... but they are leaving. We need to make sure the up-and-comers keep the best of both worlds and it has to be us because we're the "in-between."
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