Creating and Connecting

ok....what is a tween??? thank you for the urban dictionary...I did a search it means not a teen yet, the group of children between the ages of 10 and 15. "not yet really a teen. The most interesting fact that I read is that today teens spend aprox 10 hours watching tv and 9 hours using social networking sites. In comparison to TV...although we park our selves down in front of the computer as well as the TV. The article says that teens are more interactive and use more communications skills and engage in higher order of thinking while on the computer. Students are using (sharing content) with music, words, pictures, videos, and graphics. I was surprised that a genera of students using social networking in a more "aggressive, cutting edge, breaking boundries etc....were called nonconformist. It surprised me that although these students are spending a lot of time and possibly breaking the rules...the nonconformist are more in tough with their parents. (are they more in touch via these devices or via the old school in person way) the article did not say. Nonconformist..a least the ones that I know...never got along with their parents...wow are times changing. Safety policies are part of the rules that school districts must deal with. Most districts do not allow social networking, and their is a high percentage of districts that have students sign a safety policy. It seems like the circle is here again. We have these great sites to share with our students...and most schools do not or will not support the Internet use with social networking. I feel that it is important to educate the student, teacher, parent and administrators about the safety importance and value to use social networking sites. Policy's need to be in place and students need to know what rules to follow while using the schools computers. I feel that we need to embrace this technology especially since it has been found that students actually learn better while using social networking sites. I am not sure that the schools are ready to take on this vast area...although it could benefit their student body.