Social Networking in School

According to the National School Boards Association (2007) almost 60% of students using social networking discuss education and schoolwork. (Solomon and Schrum, 2010).  I personally can attest to the value of learning through social networks.  By using sites like Twitter, Edublogs and Classroom 2.0, teachers can be linked to millions of teachers around the world and learn from each other. They also share their own ideas and resources and thus become reflective learners.  Students could benefit from these tools as well. If the majority of kids are using social networking to talk about schoolwork, why not make it available in the classroom?

ASCD.org

There are several ways to teach kids to use social networking in school without exposing them to the dangers of the Internet. Educational sites like Kidblog, Edublogs, Edmodo, ePals and Wikispaces Classroom, to name a few. These are great sites for sharing information within a class or between classes. The teacher moderates what and who are allowed on the sites. Using these sites kids can learn rules for digital citizenship while interacting with other students.  Another site for interacting with other students from around the world is Skype in the Classroom. There are also educational portals for Glogster, a multimedia poster creation site, and Voki - a site that allows students to create a talking avatar. 

 

Once students have had a chance to use these tools and learn how to interact with peers and others, locally and around the world, they could be ready to use other social networking tools, provided they are over 13, which most social networks require and they follow the rules.  This is a great way to teach students to create positive digital footprints. I loved the Ning rules laid out by Michael Umphrey in Chapter 5 of Web 2.0 How to for Educators (Solomon and Schrum, 2010).

http://olecommunity.com/social-media-in-the-classroom/

Twitter could be used in the classroom with classroom hashtags, and using alternative Twitter feed sites, such as TweetChat or Twubs, which limit the screen to the chat only, eliminating distractions.  TweetChat also allows you to block people, if they are posting inappropriate comments.  But if your students don't follow the rules, they should also lose their right to post – a good way to embed digital citizenship lessons into the project. 

Teachers can use social media in class, to get input from everyone, especially the ones who don't want to speak up in class.  Students can also use social bookmarking tools like Evernote and Diigo to share information on research for projects with group members.  

Social networking allows people to learn from people outside of their local sphere and expands your knowledge base.  It allows students to interact with each other and their teachers even after school hours, to ask questions about homework, share notes, or expand on class discussions. 

More blogs on this subject:

A Guidebook for Social Media in the Classroom by Vicki Davis

Using Social Media in the Classroom for Real World Learning (Teachthought)

Seven Ways Teachers Use Social Media in the Classroom (Mashable)

Jeff Parker, 2012 Florida Today

Sources cited:
Solomon G. and Schrum, L. (2010). Web 2.0, How to for educators. Eugene, OR:ISTE.

Jing Videos

©  Corporation

This week we created 3 Jing screencast video tutorials, showing how to use selected Web2.0 tools.  Using Jing is fairly easy, once you get the hang of it.  The only thing I didn't like was the 5-minute recording time limit. I felt that I had to talk fast, which is not comfortable for me, and I had to re-record the first two videos a couple of times to get everything in.  I wanted to show Kidblog on the iPad, which I had reflected on my laptop (using the Reflector application and Airplay), but I didn't have enough time. However, by the third one, it was a little easier.  

Here are my 3 videos:

Twitter Video  

Here's the link to the Twubs chat setup (for your own chat)  

Kidblog Video 

I didn't have time to mention this can also be accessed via the iPad as well and looks very similar to the web version.  The free web subscription allows for 50 students and 100MB of data. 

Google Forms Video

Okay, I realize taking a quiz at home might not be the best idea!

What's a PLN?

I already have my Twitter account and a Diigo account, which I learned about from a classmate in a previous technology class in this program. In fact my PLN is so big, I can't keep up with it!  It all started about two years ago, when I was asked to take over the technology integrator position at school.  I had already started learning about ways to use the iPad via my SimpleK12 membership.  It is a site where you can take webinars on educational technology uses, some for free, but if you join (for $$$) you also become part of a community where you can find shared lessons, on-demand webinars and follow others.  



Shortly after that, I started looking at Twitter.  I casually observed it for a while, but then started following people and even following Twitter chats, and soon participating in them as well (as soon as I realized I had to unprotect my tweets to be 'seen' in the chat, which means anyone can follow you).  But then I also joined Classroom 2.0 and the ISTE Ning, which has several interest groups that provide webinars and wikis.  Sometime around that time I started in this program, I felt like I was drinking from a firehose!

I also started looking at Edmodo as a classroom tool for networking and discussions, but Edmodo also has teacher communities for any subject that you can join.  After joining Twitter I began to follow some of the members' blogs, which led to many others.  In the second technology class I took at SNHU, we had to come up with a list of educational references for our wiki, which expanded over the course of the class. I also learned via my PLN about Edcamps, and after attending my first I started following people I met there and their blogs too.   

wiki

Another good source for articles I read frequently is Tech&Learning magazine. You can subscribe to their online magazine, which is delivered daily in your email.

In the third tech class (EDU641) we used Blogger to discuss weekly topics and I still follow some of my classmates' blogs from that class. I also follow a couple of Facebook pages, and I even started to use Google+ as a PLN since I took a class through that site last summer on programming with Scratch. My assistant principal told me about edweb, which is another educational webinar and learning community site (and FREE!) which I have participated in recently.  I recently had to submit all my documentation for recertification, and I had a 1" stack of certificates, which I didn't need! 

So, as I said, my PLN is huge, I am sure I forgot about some of the sites I have joined, but I don't feel like I am drinking from a fire hose anymore. Instead I read what I can, when I can.  But, in case you are looking for some references, here are some of my favorites, there are too many to mention all of them.

Name                        Twitter handle        Blog site
Vicki Davis                 @coolcatteacher     coolcatteacher.com
Andrew Marcinek       @andycinek             andrewmarcinek.com
Jen Scheffer               @jlscheffer             bhshelpdesk.com
Jerry Blumengarten     @cybraryman         cybraryman.com
Edutopia                    @edutopia               edutopia.com
Mike Marotta (AT)      @mmatp                 mmatp.com
Glen Wiebe                @glennw98            historytech.wordpress.com
Richard Byrne            @rmbyrne               freetech4teachers.com
Aditi Rao                    @teachbytes           teachbytes.com
Sylvia Martinez           @smartinez             sylviamartinez.com/blog
Michael Norkun          @mnorkun              tech-4-education.blogspot.com/

So who are your favorite people or blogs you like to follow?

I think we should have a hashtag for this class on Twitter, so when you set up your account, post a tweet with the hashtag #edu642, then you can see everyone's posts by searching for #edu642 

What is a Technology Integration Specialist? Revisited

I was browsing my Twitter-sphere and saw a link to this blog discussing exactly what we were blogging about last week.  An interesting read.  Not sure where else to share this, so here it is. (Should we have a Twitter hashtag? Like #edu642 ?)

http://chrisbetcher.com/2014/04/technology-integration/

Digital Citizenship

edu642 mod 2

Poster credit: commonsense.org

Digital citizenship is a necessary concept that should be taught in schools. It is required by NH State standard ED306.42 that schools provide opportunities for students to learn "ethical, responsible use of technology tools" (NHDOE, 2006).

Common Sense Media has a wonderful curriculum for all grade levels, from kindergarten through high school students.  I have this poster (which is from their website) hanging up on my classroom wall.  I think it's a great poster as it defines the thought process that everyone should go through before posting anything on the Internet.  As I tell my students, anything posted on the web will follow you forever, your digital footprint.  We discuss how employers and college admissions may search the Internet to find what kind of digital footprint they have left.  We Google ourselves to see what might be there.  We talk about privacy settings and passwords and keeping information safe, but we also talk about how their friends may share things that they post as well, so privacy settings are not always fail-safe.  

We also learn about computer safety, personal safety and cyberbullying, as well as copyright and plagiarism issues. (Another great poster, by Pia Jane Bijkirk, on posting copyrighted works can be seen here.  I also have this hanging in my classroom, but I can't post it here, because I don't have the artist's permission.)

They learn how to make sure their digital footprints are appropriate, by posting helpful information, such as the webquest project we do which has them creating informational web pages on being a good digital citizen.  Some schools have students creating blog pages to interact with students from other schools or using Twitter to share information or participate in class discussions.  These are good ways to teach good digital citizenship . 

I have heard from other classmates in the previous courses who use the THINK before you post rule.  Is the post:

1. True?
2. Helpful?
3. Inspiring?
4. Necessary?
5. Kind?

Here are some other sites I have found useful for teaching digital citizenship concepts:

http://www.netsmartzkids.org/
http://www.netsmartz.org/Teens
http://www.nsteens.org/
http://www.digizen.org/
https://www.digitalpassport.org/educator-registration


References cited:

Common Sense Media. (2012). [Poster]. Retrieved from: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/pdfs/postaphoto-ms-hs-poster.pdf

NHDOE. (2006). Technical advisory #2, Information and communication technologies. Retrieved from: http://www.education.nh.gov/standards/documents/advisory2.pdf