Sunday, November 9, 2008
Social Networking ~Malena~
I am in favor of social networking sites for classroom use as a way to collaborate and communicate outside of the classroom. I do not really know of any teachers that are using the technology but it is an emerging concept. I think a lot of teachers are not using it because of the negative reputation that sites like MySpace have and because they themselves have never use these sites. I have had a Facebook page since I was an undergrad so I would not be opposed to using one, but MySpace on the other hand is something that I would not use because I too view it as a less reputable social networking site. As it was mentioned in the Library 2.0 text, Facebook first started as an academic social network mostly used by college students. I do not think that many school systems are open to the idea of using social networks for classroom use since these sites are often blocked and filtered. Facebook could be used to create debate groups in a class and post responses to the pro/con groups Wall, write responses to writing prompts using the Notes applications. Another classic use of Facebook in the classroom is to announce events or news taken place in the class or to announce events for extracurricular activities.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Malena,
I do see your idea of announcing events about the media center on social networks. I do think it is something that would have to be worked on lots for the safety reasons. You have great ideas such as using it as a debate site. Also writing responses to writing prompt is a good idea you have for using social networks.
I had not thought about using the notes application to respond to prompts, but that is something that I surely would have used as a Language Arts teacher. Come to think of it, the focus on writing has made it's way to every content area, so other teachers would benefit as well. What a great idea. I also agree that MySpace is a less reputable site, just based on my own experiences. Great post.
I agree that social networking sites might be useful for outside the classroom communication, but I think that you would have to stay away from sites like MySpace or even Facebook. If a school is able to set up their own site perhaps through their website it might work. I still think Wiki's or blogs would be easier to maintain for a classroom.
Post a Comment