Thing #12 - Social Networking

I entered social networking with some reservations about its value for me, the amount of time it would take and how to maintain some amount of privacy. It seems like most of the students I talk to have either MySpace or Facebook accounts. I know that the majority of students who get past our filter do so in order to get on MySpace. Educators who know how students are communicating with each other can utilize that knowledge to create similar ways for students to receive information related to the classroom or library.

Here is a link to my Facebook page. My son says I need a photo so I don't look so "confused"; photo added! A useful feature in Facebook is the ability to create groups. I'm going to check with our student book club to see if they have any interest in having a Facebook group to discuss books. You can also check the photo albums of your friends and upload video. I don't really like that any time someone contacts you on Facebook that it sends you an email, especially since I used my school email. On the positive side, that feature may keep you from constantly going to check on your page for new messages.

MySpace seems like a much larger site. It has dozens more options, including its own version of YouTube, classifieds, forums, linking through favorite film and TV shows. lots more. That could be an advantage if you need those options. For me it was too much. If I were to consider using it as an educator, I would have to be very cautious about some of the ads and other postings that students would be exposed to. I think that Facebook would be more useful for educators, because there are less pop culture distractions for the students.

If the sites were unblocked, I could see a classroom teacher creating class groups for project work or for a forum to discuss issues.

Ning is such a great way to create a social network. I was very interested in the Teacher-Librarian Ning and the Classroom 2.0. Since we are helping teachers in the library, I like to read about what other teachers are doing so I have realistic ideas for projects involving Web 2.0. Our Mesquite Librarian Ning could be an interesting forum for discussion on issues that we deal with. It's an improvement over email, because you can see all the posts at one time on a topic. If we had an issue with a challenged book, we could submit our thoughts to the group. I'm going to keep looking for more ideas on using social networking.