Should social media be part of the BC school curriculum?

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Learning to navigate the Internet can be tricky and for kids, it can be downright dangerous.

A communications professor at Simon Fraser University believes social media should be a regular part of the curriculum in BC schools.

An independent school has started teaching the subject. Vernon Christian School uses a program called Petra’s Planet with kids in Grades 4 to 6.

The program is apparently a modified social network; it’s protected so kids can log on, learn, and make mistakes without their information going out everywhere online.

“This is a place where kids go. It’s part of their online world and part of their media literacy, part of their social literacy… and a lot of what schools are for are teaching social skills. This is a really important one that we know a little about but what the kids need to know a lot more about as they get older,” says Peter Chow-White with SFU.

“Of course, you need teachers who are able to teach about it,” he adds.

“We’ve all been learning about social media over the last half a decade or so. So, in order to take that first-hand experience and turn it into a curriculum, that’s a whole other issue altogether, in terms of what kids need to know about how to act, how to behave, where to go, what sites they should be going to, what sites they shouldn’t be going to, how they should be talking to each other, what’s a digital footprint… These are all issues that can be rolled into a curriculum.”

Chow-White points out this is also about their careers later on in life.

“Who you are online is increasingly being tied to your chances of getting jobs, like creating your online profile, personal branding… social media is very good about this.”

He suggests parents talk about the benefits, risks and challenges of social media with their kids rather than ban it.

The Ministry of Education says there are no specific social media courses in public schools, but notes there are digital literacy topics throughout the curriculum.

Programs can be developed by teachers in individual districts, as long as they are in line with provincial requirements.

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