Transcript
First-of-its-kind study at the U of M uncovers the educational benefits of social networking sites

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If you’re a high schooler, chances are you’re familiar with MySpace …

“You kind of express yourself, or how your day went…”

…and chances are you know your way around it pretty well, too.

“Express how you feel each day, to upload images that you have, through an event that you’ve been through.”

Na and Mai, two Minneapolis high school students, are as technologically advanced as anyone else their age, anywhere in the world.

“I’ve updated my status, added a blog about how I felt…”

“You can even change the cursor into animals or monkeys or flowers…”

The two students are also from a lower-income area of the city …and while their proficiency with social networking sites like MySpace might surprise some, University of Minnesota education researcher Christine Greenhow, says it shouldn’t.

“Students from low-income families are actually very connected. They are students who are finding ways to connect to the Internet, pretty much everyday.”

Another Surprise? While some worry about the dangers associated with social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, Greenhow’s research suggests they can also have a very big upside.

For example, as a result of maintaining their own MySpace profiles, students in Minneapolis have learned advanced technological skills, such as how to create blogs and Web pages and upload music, movies and pictures.

“A lot of my friends, they know the codes at the top of their heads and I ask them ‘how do I do this or this?’ and they just do it.”

The next step for U of M researchers like Greenhow, is helping teachers use MySpace in lesson plans.

“Our study is really trying to look at what are some of those things and how can we help students, teachers and parents think about these sites in a way that can be actually beneficial.”

Greenhow says, much like how a parent or teacher helps their child learn how to drive a car, which can be dangerous …in today’s world, parents and teachers also need to help their students learn how to use potentially dangerous social networking sites safely and to their advantage.

“And just understand what the students are experiencing so that you could reinforce some of the responsible and effective uses.”

And help the students continue their leap into the technological futures ahead of them.

“To have some sort of skills like that, it’s pretty impressive, too, because not everybody I know can have those kind of skills.”

For the University of Minnesota, I’m Justin Ware.