I think this is an interesting week. I have never used a social website before. My own children have and of course my students do. To be honest, I just never seemed to find the time to set one up. Or maybe I did not understand the importance of what they can offer. Whatever the reason, my thinking on social websites is definitely starting to change. Thanks to this class, what happened to me this week and the videos that we have available to us.
The funny thing that happened earlier today. My son who is 21 is living in Boston for this summer. I have been trying to call and text him the past few days. We are leaving soon to go on a family vacation and we need to connect a pick up time. I asked my daughter if she had heard from him. She said "no, but I will check his face book". I am thinking ok...why would that be necessary. Well two seconds later she tells me "he has lost his cellphone". He had posted that on his face book account. Thankfully my daughter posted a note that I needed to schedule a pick up time. Another two seconds later and my problem was solved. My son was just fine, and we had a scheduled time that I could pick him up. This was all possible to a social networking site. No phone, no e-mail, no texting...just posting to Facebook. It is weird that this would happen on this particular week of class when we are talking about social websites.
Anyway, I am really starting to turn a corner on this particular issue. After reading and watching the videos of this week, I no longer feel that is a waste of time. I can see the potential that it has to offer our students and our own children. Of course it is necessary to find that balance that we are all looking for but that is not any different from eating too much, watching too much tv and any other types of behavior that might not be healthy.
pros and cons of social networking sites in the classroom environment.
Video Educational benefits of social networking
The networking that happens or can happen in social networking sites is just amazing. If you have a student who is interested in video production for example, they have the opportunity to reach many other students or websites that could be of benefit. The same goes for students that are looking into particular colleges or universities. They have the potential to reach many students who might be attending those schools and or graduated from them. My feelings are that as long as the student is able to handle the time management of using these sites and they are not following behind on other tasks it can really be a great experience and opportunity to reach a much larger community.
"A year after seventh grade teacher Elizabeth Delmatoff started a pilot social media program in her Portland, Oregon classroom, 20 percent of students school-wide were completing extra assignments for no credit, grades had gone up more than 50 percent, and chronic absenteeism was reduced by more than a third." from Huffington Post article - Loved this information! The educational benefits are not explored enough yet, but I will continue to work on educating others about the many awesome possibilities. Social tools are just that, social. They can bring students together and form a sense of community within the classroom and school. They can bring that shy student who is afraid of speaking out loud and give them a digital voice. So many great possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI have a similar situation with the facebook. When my oldest daughter went off to college last year in Boston, I would check her facebook page to make sure she was posting regularly, and not text her as much. I wanted to give her the room to grow, yet I couldn't help worrying about her! My youngest daughter is benefiting from facebook as well, as she will be leaving for prep school in the fall. The girls on the field hockey and hockey teams have been great. They have helped her with many questions such as dress code and what to expect when she arrives. It has really alleviated some of the anxiety as she will already made some connections.
I noticed your idea about using social bookmarking for a video project for your students. What a clever idea for them to be able to connect to other learners across the world who have various ideas on how to help them create such videos. I am excited to start using these sites with my middle school students for this purpose as well. Wouldn't it be amazing if they could create content based videos for sharing with classes around the world? They could collaborate throughout the entire process and use their reflections on that process as part of their final product. Wow, you have me thinking!
ReplyDeleteOk, I just signed up for the teachers edition of Diigo. Still trying to figure out all of the ins and outs of how this can be used. My plans for this fall is to take just one of my classes and really try and take it up a bit...or a whole lot.. I have five preps so it can be hard, but.. one at a time...right?
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