UK Students Now Being Taught Social Media In Elementary School
The Guardian recently published an article announcing the fact that UK schools will now be teaching their students how to use social media.
Many are praising the news as extremely forward thinking on part of the UK school system, while others fear that the classes may become a case of the students teaching the teachers – as many of these students already use social media tools and may indeed use them more frequently than the teachers who are being paid to give the classes.
Already, it seems, the Teachers Union is fighting back – doing what they can to maintain the status quo. They’re upset because they were not involved in early discussions about the change in curriculum and were only given three days to respond to the news.
While the current plan is to teach students how to use blogs, Twitter, and Wikipedia, this increase in coursework will mean cutting out the large amount of time previously spent studying the Victorians, World War II and other traditional elementary school subjects.
It seems as though some individuals get what this change is all about. Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “Children need to be enthused by learning, so they want to learn and gain the skills which will enable them to learn in later life. The debate is not about whether the Victorians are in there or not.”
And so it seems that schools around the world are starting to understand what this social media thing is all about. They are starting to see that the Internet and the online tools that have been created over the past few years are and very well could become some of the greatest education tools ever created. Now it’s simply a matter of implementing those tools into our education system and giving our youth the skills necessay to succeed in the future.
Just listen to what Jannifer A. Jones of Speak Media Blog has to say about the issue. (Just watch the first two minutes)
