In the past ten years, our society has become increasingly technological. Children are progressively spending more time using technology and often are more knowledgeable about certain technological ideas than many adults.It is generally agreed that fast pace technological advances are not going to cease and as time progresses children are going to be more involved and influenced by technology in every avenue of society.
New social developments on the web such as Bebo, Facebook and You Tube have had a significant response from user groups, especially children. Currently there is major concern that some of these organisations can promote negative attitudes and effects such as cyber-bullying.
Often these critics overlook the positive contribution these new developments make to new approaches such as E-Learning where individuals learn how to use technology in a way they have not previously experienced. Children as young as 5 are learning how to add images and videos to websites and also design simple web pages.
The significance of Bebo is stated on the Bebo website (2007):
“Bebo (www.bebo.com) is the largest social networking site in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, and the third largest behind MySpace and Facebook in the United States. Officially launched in July 2005, Bebo has more than 34 million registered members viewing 7 billion monthly page views. Bebo was the most searched for term in 2006 according to Google Zeitgeist and Bebo received the 2006 Webby Award People's Vote as the best social networking site in the world. The executive team has a significant background in the viral marketing and the online social networking space starting up and building companies such as Birthday Alarm, Ringo, and Friendster. Located in San Francisco, Bebo recently received a round of funding of $15MM led by Benchmark Capital”.
Like the web itself Bebo and similar sites have developed because users want them to. Overtime they will change but have greater social influence in the future and educationalists will need to use these social network sites as a positive way to promote E-Learning.
Throughout this blog I will be looking at different media forms that can be used on Bebo and analyse and explore the contribution it can make to education in general.
