Youth and Social Media

Watch the video link: Social Media Revolution 2014

Try this Link: https://youtu.be/xCNMLvS4gAg

Respond to the following:

1. Share your thoughts about the content of the video.

2. How does Youth Culture impact the way afterschool programs operate?

3. With the technological trends that were highlighted in the clip, propose how technology can be incorporated into program services to benefit staff, parents, and program participants.

4. Find a program that incorporates technology into its programming, and in particular, a campaign to stop and prevent bullying. Share a videolink, website, or program pamphlet of the organization/ program.

Respond to at least one of your classmates.

Student’s post that needs response:

I had no clue that social media is as large as it is until I saw the numbers in the video. Obviously I knew everything seems to revolve around phones, and I am always hearing people talking about how many likes they got, or how many followers, and after seeing this I am thinking I may want to open up a bit more and get more familiarized with social media. I do have facebook, but that I use rarely, mainly so family and friends can see my kids and their accomplishments. I am not familiar with any of the other social media other than facebook, at one point maybe 4 years ago or so I did have a snapchat, but seldom used that. From what I have seen on facebook as well as what I have seen from google searching how social media can be used in education as well as in after school care programs social media can be used for so many reasons. Some use it for communication, an example is I noticed a program my children were in up north now has a facebook page and when school is cancelled due to snow they can post it there and cut the radio and news out of a morning routine, it does make it easier instead of trying to get ready and when your unsure if you need to get kids up and ready it is a lot easier to click on a facebook page and get an answer when you want it instead of making sure you are up in time and hoping you dont miss that specific announcement because you would have to wait another 20-30 minutes to hear it again. Also, I have seen several teacher workshops across social media, as well as other educational professionals, and even doctors doing lectures and other videos of useful beneficial information that could help, or give ideas to several others in the field. I have seen several groups on facebook for almost everything I could think of, I am in multiple groups for autism, some are support groups, some are people selling items, some are just there to talk and so forth, but with bullying being brought up, and my household having a problem with it first hand, I looked that up as well. I did notice groups for anti-bullying, and other titles to do with bullying, and as everything on the internet, of course some negative. I think when dealing with social media, or the internet in general, a big thing to pay attention to is the source of the information. There are so many people that are negative, or hateful, even scamming people that knowing a source or at least checking to be sure they are real, and have peoples best interests at heart can be helpful when dealing with sensitive subjects.

If I was running or working in an after school program and decided to use social media I would for one, do a lot more research into social media so I could be sure to get the correct information and the most out of it. I think using it to communicate to the families would be effective, as well as reaching out to the community. If after school programs have the support of the community it could help the program to grow. I also feel when people feel included in things in their community even if it is not something they need they just feel more like home. From my experience of living in cities versus small towns even the larger city people have a large amount of citizens who still want that small town friendly feeling.

If it was something that was okay with parents I would also use social media to find a group of youths in the program pen pals from around the world. I do understand giving out addresses isnt okay over the internet, but we could set up a po box to use for the youth program. I think the kids could write to others in other states as well as other areas of the world and than learn new things about cultures as well as how other live in different areas and so forth, and than the youth in the program could even share the information with others and it could be a great learning experience for everyone one how people live in other areas as well as the differences everywhere.

As an educator in a youth program we could use some lectures, even some groups on social media to get new ideas, and see things from others perspective.

I seen several anti-bullying things on social media, I would love to say some day the world would be kind, but unfortunately I think a lot stems from mental illness, that is just an opinion. I think sometimes maybe a child lives in a home where someone suffers from a mental illness and either isnt very nice, or maybe not as much time spent with the youth needed, so many reasonings that can cause a child to not be so nice. Sometimes a child just thinks being mean to someone who may seem different will make them look cool. I do know there are groups for younger kids online that kids can chat, share, and get to know other kids that have similar issues. I personally think it is ridiculous that anyone is considered different, weird or anything. We are all human, I dont understand this different thing, we are not made to be alike, so I am still trying to figure out societies view on normal, but I was always taught normal isnt a thing, yet here we are having people who are considered normal all in a group than the weird all in a group, I dont know if it is because we are a household of people on the spectrum so maybe we see things in a different light and some things just dont make any sense or what the reasoning is, but I dont know if I will ever understand who determines normal and weird, and the fact people feel a need to say anything negative to a person, especially a child, because of looks, personality, clothes, skin, all of that makes no sense at all