Week 10/18/14 Readings 

The first reading I wanted to touch on for this week was, "Twitter is a Snark Valve". I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. It was something refreshing and new to hear from an educator that they appreciated the snarky comments made by their students. Most would hate it I thought but my opinion changed as I read. As the author stated
"In other words, one of the most common uses of Twitter among my students is snark. And that is a good powerful thing"
Everything I experienced throughout elementary and high school has told me that this statement was untrue. Students were always told to use a more respectful form of discourse in the classroom. Make a snarky comment and get the stink eye from the teacher or even worse a tongue lashing in front of all your peers. But this author argues that snarky witty comments are a great way to engage students in the classroom. Say what?? And I could not agree more! I have had the pleasure of seeing this way of thinking play out in an actual classroom with my practicum mentor teacher at North High School. She often jokes with students, and their comments and sometimes snark (if it is school appropriate)are welcomed in her classroom. In return she has a classroom of students who are engaged and respect her more for her ability to joke and have fun with them. This is something that I plan on carrying into my own classroom. I feel like if you are too restrictive in your classroom with students especially at the secondary level, they will just clam up and not share at all or possibly lash out. Which are both things I don't want. In regards to student writing (since I am going to become an English teacher) I think snark could be a really positive thing like Sample states in his piece, 
It’s involved, it’s witty, and most importantly, it takes an oppositional stance — a welcome reprieve from the majority of student writing, which avoids taking any stance at all.

As a teacher I would much rather have a student who disagrees using snark and defends their viewpoints effectively rather than just have a student agree and just go through the motions. With little to no opinion about much of anything. Whatever gets my students excited and engaged I'm up for trying it in my classroom! 

The next reading I really enjoyed was "Why Do Teens Seem Strange Online", it brought up some really interesting ideas and I related a lot to it. In the first part of the article when the author is discussing the boy from South Central and how he is viewed strictly based on his myspace profile. It made me think... wow it's kinda of crazy that there are tons and tons of people that are making snap judgements about me based on my twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. I wonder what they think about me? And it's not really fair to judge me solely based on my social media pages... but it's not like I haven't done it to dozens of people. Think about it, when your ex gets a new girl/boyfriend what's the first thing you do once you know their name?? You go Facebook stalk them! And don't even pretend like you haven't done it guys!  Our generation can find any person online in an instant (if they have social media) and make an assumption about who they are and what they are like without even knowing them personally. Pretty crazy right. What are your thoughts guys? Are you guilty of Facebook stalking? or Judging someone based solely on their social media accounts? Were your judgments somewhat true or completely false? 

This reading also got me thinking about future employers/my school seeing my social media pages. In one of my other classes one of my peers was talking about why he doesn't use his real name on his Facebook page because he heard that the college of education looks up our Facebook pages and goes through them determining if we are good teacher candidates. Now I don't know if this is true at all but  it made me kind of nervous! Not that my Facebook is terribly inappropriate or anything but there are definitely some things on there that I wouldn't want my school seeing. Mainly posts between my friends and I. Which leads me to another piece that this article discussed. The idea of intended audience and how teens struggle with that on social media.
"The ability to understand how context,audience, and identity intersect is one of the central challenges people face in  learning how to navigate social media"
This is a challenge that I face myself on social media. Like I stated before there are things on my page I wouldn't want my school to see and are intended for my friends eyes only. Just recently on Facebook I was commenting back and forth with friends on a picture and I used some expletive and interjects my prim and proper aunt, "WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE YOUNG LADY!" This really happened... yikes. Like the author states, 
"Unfortunately, adults sometimes believe that they understand what they see online without considering how teens imagined the context when they originally posted a particular photograph or comment"
My aunt clearly did not understand that this wasn't meant for her to see. In the moment your not thinking about all the hundreds of people who could be seeing what your typing. But the reality is that I cannot pick and choose what people see (and relating it back to my first point I made) what judgements they are going to make about me because of it. Although it may be intended for my friends only, the entire world including my overly sensitive aunt and UNO's College of Education is able to see what I'm typing, posting, commenting, sharing, liking... the lists goes on and on. That's a pretty powerful thing to think about guys, am I right?