Comments on: Your professional approach to social networking should be based on your professional context and values http://www.timdavies.org.uk/2009/07/02/your-professional-approach-to-social-networking-should-be-based-on-your-professional-context-and-values/ working for social change; thinking about the details Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:31:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: mas http://www.timdavies.org.uk/2009/07/02/your-professional-approach-to-social-networking-should-be-based-on-your-professional-context-and-values/comment-page-1/#comment-62821 mas Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:01:24 +0000 http://www.timdavies.org.uk/?p=2459#comment-62821 I think its important too to make sure people understand that how people can communicate online and particularly through social networks is rapidly evolving, so to set up a rigid policy now based on particular services and technologies and their permitted use might prove to be either quickly irrelevant or overly cumbersome just a few months later. Obviously this works both ways in that its possible to use services now with pretty good safeguards in terms of how records can be kept etc. On the otherhand simple email services like gmail all of a sudden provide a live chat option for your email contacts and potentially radically altering how you use that service to interact with people (and of course facebook). Ultimately though its back again to purpose - to what aim are the services being used and how best can they be used towards that aim? I think its very easy instead for some places to be used just because they're there and with little consideration as to whether the investment in creating, using and managing an online space merits its purpose (if indeed it has one!), and youth work in general often seems notoriously confused about its purpose. PS I'll not chase down the link because I'm sure you've seen it but theres a really good film somewhere of twitter being used in a classroom setting to encourage participation by those who don't like to speak out during class - a good example of using an online service to fit a specific purpose. I think its important too to make sure people understand that how people can communicate online and particularly through social networks is rapidly evolving, so to set up a rigid policy now based on particular services and technologies and their permitted use might prove to be either quickly irrelevant or overly cumbersome just a few months later.

Obviously this works both ways in that its possible to use services now with pretty good safeguards in terms of how records can be kept etc. On the otherhand simple email services like gmail all of a sudden provide a live chat option for your email contacts and potentially radically altering how you use that service to interact with people (and of course facebook).

Ultimately though its back again to purpose – to what aim are the services being used and how best can they be used towards that aim? I think its very easy instead for some places to be used just because they’re there and with little consideration as to whether the investment in creating, using and managing an online space merits its purpose (if indeed it has one!), and youth work in general often seems notoriously confused about its purpose.

PS I’ll not chase down the link because I’m sure you’ve seen it but theres a really good film somewhere of twitter being used in a classroom setting to encourage participation by those who don’t like to speak out during class – a good example of using an online service to fit a specific purpose.

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