I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who just completed her Ed.D. from Mercer University. We were talking about her dissertation when I asked if anyone in her cohort had done anything with social media in education. When she told me that one of her classmates wrote their dissertation on the negative impact of social media in education, I was not surprised. It’s consistent with what I see, hear and read; most people in education only see the negative side of social media. I’d like to take a different view.

Using social media well can positively impact high school graduation rates and here’s why. Dr. Tim Elmore writes that students today are from an EPIC generation. He expands on the word EPIC as an acronym for:
E – Experiential, Students today love to learn from experiences.
P – Participatory, They’ve been conditioned to participate in the outcomes of almost everything in their life.
I – Image Rich, Young people today have grown up in a world filled with images.
C – Connected, Students today are connected—both technologically and socially.
Using Dr. Elmore’s EPIC, isn’t that what social media is all about? And isn’t that where a majority of our students live? The irony is that most school districts block anything to do with social media. But that has not stopped students from using it, at school or at home.

On to my point. How can social media impact student graduation rates? Although most school systems block social media for student use, it doesn’t mean that the school systems themselves don’t use it. It’s not unusual to see school districts ask you to “like” them on facebook, or “follow” them on Twitter. But why should we ask students to “like” or “follow” their school or school district? To stay connected. Students who stay connected to their school are more likely to have success. According to Dr. Robert Bluhm (2004), in order to succeed, students need to feel they “belong” in their school. Students who experience school connectedness like school, feel that they belong, believe teachers care about them and their learning, believe that education matters, have friends at school, believe that discipline is fair, and have opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities.

That’s what social media does and that’s how it can impact high school graduation rates. Use social media to share school activities and have students post pictures and comments from them. Use social media to have students submit yearbook pictures. Use social media to have students collaborate to solve a school problem. There’s no shortage of ideas, just ask your students. But in order for social media in education to work in a positive way, it requires us as educators to take the time to teach students the right way to use it. We need to teach students how to maintain a positive online reputation, but also how to secure their privacy. With some reports suggesting that more than 80% of students ages 14-18 having a social media presence, why not take advantage of it? Why not use social media to keep students connected to their school, increasing their chance of success? Whether we like it or not, our students are from an EPIC generation, with social media playing a prominent role in their lives so let’s embrace it.