Last week I was speaking with one of our English teachers, JJ, about an extra credit assignment he’d given his seniors for their study of the Iliad. JJ asked them to create a “myspace-like” page for one of the characters, writing an appropriate profile and communicating with other characters from Homer’s epic. He did not tell them they had to actually use MySpace to create their page. They could have used another software application or even hand-drawn the page.

What happened? Most students opted for the cyber-approach and the Iliad is now alive and thriving on MySpace!

Most of us have heard about MySpace and Facebook, but do you know what they are? They are social networking sites that many (if not most) of our students are using to find and communicate with friends.

Social Networking in Plain English

Are these sites sometimes used inappropriately, with students making inflammatory comments and posting questionable photos? Absolutely. Are they home to predators hoping to befriend minors for unspeakable purposes? Yes.

When used appropriately, though, these sites are not evil. Humans, and most especially the teenagers we teach, are social beings. Social networking is just another way to socialize. We can embrace this technology and strive to use it to make learning relevant for our students, in the process teaching them how to responsibly and safely utilize this resource. Or, we can ignore it.

But one thing is certain — it’s not going away.