Consider a school playground where games are played, words exchanged, opinions stated, memories made and experiences shared. Imagine a school hallway, where stress is endured, judgements made, relationships created and destroyed.
Apply all of this to a social media based website and you will experience the environment that the majority of youth live in today. Connected by multiple devices to multiple forms of social media, students connect to hundreds of friends uploading daily activities as events occur, including successes and failures, opinion, complete with contact information.
As social media has embedded into our society, the trends and trials of online sharing has had mixed results across the community – positive for some and chaotic for others.
Jesse Miller of the North Vancouver firm Mediated Reality, has addressed thousands of participants presenting and consulting to schools and companies since 2007. And he is coming to schools in the Boundary next week.
He has shaped how students use and communicate over social media websites and applications with the sole purpose of producing smart, aware and ethical social media participants who communicate an effective and positive message and build an online reputation that will help students into the next stages of life.
It is said his presentation changes the way youth approach their use of social media.
Students leave presentations with a new respect for personal privacy, online content and a full awareness of the positives and negatives to social networking.
Grade 6 to 12 students in the West Boundary will hear his presentation on the afternoon of Thursday, May 15. That same evening there will be another session for parents and community members at BCSS in Midway from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
The evening workshop will be presented to parents and community Grand Forks Secondary School on Wednesday, May 14 from 6:30 to 8 p.m.