1. Investigating the 21st Century K-16
Social Media Use and Whether or
Not The Time Has Come for Formal
Social Media Education.
Focusing On Whether or Not There is A Need For Standardized Social Media Curriculum.
Adalheidur Reed

2. What Age’s Are K-16 Students
Actively Using Social Media?

3. Abstract
• This Study is aimed at examining social media use
in K – 16 students, gauging at what age they
initially start using social media, how and from
whom they learn to use social media, what types
of interactions they engage in (Good, Bad or
UGLY!), investigating whether or not it is time
that the government step in with Formal Social
Media Education (FSME) and Standardized Social
Media Curriculum (SSMC).

4. Introduction
• Today 6 years after opening to the general public there
are 901 million active Facebook users
(Wikipedia, 2012). Who is educating the general public
in OSMP use?
• How many of the 901 Million active users are children
under 18?
• May 2012 CEO of Facebook Mark Zeckerburg thinks
that it is time that the current 13 year old age limit be
lifted because children are able to learn from using
Facebook (MSNNow, 2012).

5. Research Questions
The Main object of this research will be to gauge whether there is a currently a social
media Wild Wild West settler setting for K – 16 students and if so what can be
done to foster a better or “Best Practice” social media environment for K – 16
students; which warranted asking the following questions:
• At What Age do K – 16 students start using social media?
• Who/What is monitoring K – 16 minors that are already actively engaged in the
use of social media?
• Who, what and how are K – 16 students learning how to use social media from?
• What are the possible long/short term damage can be caused to K – 16 students
from using social media?
• How can long/short term social media damage for K – 16 students be avoided?

6. Social Media Background History
• Social Media has been around for the last 44 years! (Wikipedia,
2012)
– ARPANET 1968 / Taylor
– USENET 1980 / Tom Triscot and Tom Ellis
– Friendster 2002 / Jonathan Abrams
– Linkedin 2002 / Hoffman, Blue, Ly, Vaillant, Hower, Guericke,
Beitzel,Eves,McNish, Pujante, and Saccheri
– MySpace 2003 / Tom Anderson
– Facebook 2004 / Zuckerberg, Moskovitz and Huges
– Twitter 2006 / Dorsey, Glass, Williams, Stone
– Google+ 2011 / Google Inc.

7. Background on Standardized Social
Media Curriculum.
• As Of today’s date August 2012 there is no
Standard Social Media Curriculum (SSMC). Does
the current use by students K – 16 call for SSMC?
• Many High Schools and Junior High Schools ban
social media such as Facebook within School
Walls, claiming that it is distraction. (Wikipedia,
2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service#Social_networks_and_
education

8. Social Media Background Today
• There are many forms of social media today ranging
from social networking to professional networking:
– Linkedin is a professional network.
– Facebook is most known as a social network but can also
be used to network professionally.
– Twitter is know as sort of a news media network where
you can find business’s, newspapers, celebrities and
friends Tweeting about current events.
– Google+ is the newest of these social medias and is
starting to earn a reputation as a the network with the
best tools for education and business network sharing.

9. Largest Social Medium is Facebook
• Today 6 years after opening to the general public there
are over 901 million active Facebook users (Wikipedia,
2012). Where did all these users learn how to use
Facebook?
• How many of the 901 Million active users are children
under 18?
• May 2012 CEO of Facebook Mark Zeckerburg thinks
that it is time that the current 13 year old age limit be
lifted because children are able to learn from using
Facebook (MSNNow, 2012). Now what?

10. Is There A “Best Practice”?
• Schools are trying to implement their own social
networks with sites like Edmundo.
• Is there buy in from students outside of the
school walls, where they are being forced to use
Edmundo.
• If large numbers of students are already engaged
in the use of social media sites, tomorrow is not
the time to implement SSMC into K-16 Education
the time is Yesterday!

11. What type of online media profile
does your child have?
• 92% parent participants reported their children used Facebook or 103 out
of 112 responding to this item, only 15 out of the103 respondents
reported they used something other then the mainstream social media
listed indicating that not very many students are using the Edmundo as a
social networking site outside of school walls.
# Answer Response %
1 Facebook 103 92%
2 MySpace 7 6%
3 Twitter 12 11%
Yahoo
4 12 11%
Messenger
5 Windows Live 19 17%
6 Skype 33 29%
7 Other 15 13%

12. Methods
• Three Pilot studies where conducted to find what type of social
media interaction K – 16 students are already engaged in without
out formal training.
• Participants 18 years and older where recruited from two
universities in North Texas and one university in Iceland.
• Participants for K – 12 student parents where recruited using social
media and an online survey.
– Facebook
– Twitter
– Linkedin
• The total number of participants where 206 From Iceland and the
US (N = 206).

13. How old was your Child when their
first social media profile was created?
• A total of 82% parent participants out of 116
that responded had children under the age of
14 when their ONSP was created.
# Answer Response %
1 1-5 9 8%
2 6-10 28 24%
3 11-14 68 59%
4 15-18 21 18%

14. What Do K – 16 Students Know About
Privacy
• What type of interaction are K – 16 students
participating in while engaging in using social
media and is it safe?
• Who is navigating their social media journey?
• Who is protecting K- 16 students while they
travel the social media highway?
• What if at all are their privacy levels set to?

15. Parents Monitoring?
• When asked “Do you monitor your child-
children while they engage in using online
social media?” Only 13% answered “Yes Every
Step”.
# Answer Response %
Yes Every
1 15 13%
Step
Most Of the
2 37 33%
time
3 Pretty Much 34 30%
4 Not Much 25 22%
5 Not At All 1 1%
Total 112 100%

16. Discussion
April, 2012 the active users of Facebook grew from 845 million in
February to over 901 million (Wikipedia, 2012), this growth
seems to indicate the need for an updated larger version of
this study.
– Are students buying into school issued social media sites like
Edmodo that the schools are attempting to use to safely teach
social media interaction, are students using Edmondo?
– Is there buy in for school issued social media such as
Edmundo outside of the school walls or will students to a
large degree continue actively using social medias like
Facebook, Twitter and Google+ with no formal training?
– If only 13% of the participating 142 parents surveyed were
monitoring everything their children under the age of 18
where doing who is monitoring the rest of the 87% of children
and who should be monitoring this?

17. Conclusion
• In K-16 schools students are shown the proper social behaviors on the school premises things like
respect, please, thank you, taking your place in line, do not disrupt the class, do not bully others,
what to do if you are bullied, raise your hand before speaking, do not wear inappropriate clothing
and do not use inappropriate language. These rules and regulations from the school carryover into
all forms of life and these are the rules students are expected to follow when they become adult
professionals; However the rules of engagement for social media websites have yet to be created
and from the findings in this paper it is clear that the need to introduce social media in to K-16
classrooms is here and it cannot be ignored any longer by school administrators or by parents.
Children are already using social media in high numbers and they are learning from a California gold
rush Wild Wild West settler setting; there are no best practices clear standard or official rules and
regulations for children to follow in this uncharted playground they are already fully engaged in
using! It is clear from this study that parents are not actively engaged in creating or monitoring
their children’s online social activities; therefore it is clear that the school needs to step in and
create some sort of rules of engagement that students are able to follow to protect them from the
many dangers and pitfalls they will needlessly endure and that they could avoid such as social-
media-stranger danger, social-media-bullying and or social media inappropriate exposure/behavior.
Exploring and explaining these dangers needs to become a high priority NOW before we allow our
children to get hurt due to schools dropping the ball on this issue, the need is here NOW!

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19. Questions