While we are all familiar with social networking sitess such as Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, there are many social networks dedicated to education. These include Classroom 2.0, edWeb.net, LearnCentral, Tapped In, and TeachAde. While these are not popular in schools yet, the more media specialists and teachers learn about them and use them in the classroom, the more powerful they will become as learning tools.
Media specials use social media technology in their teaching and collaborating with students and teachers, but they also use it to collaborate with other media specialists and media centers. The Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs) are starting to provide social networking applications! This is extremely important because now media specialists can integrate the electronic catalog into the latest technology available on the Internet. Some popular social networking communities that are being developed and used by school media specialists include Fish4Info, Follett’s Destiny, SirsiDynix’s Enterprise, and Mandarin’s OPAC. These invocative networks offer media specialists a multitude of tools that include user tagging, book reviews and ratings, social bookmarking to system wide catalogs, and sophisticated search engines. To me, I think the most interesting tool would be in Follett’s Destiny, which offers students, teachers, and staff to chance to give ratings to books and submit text, audio, or video reviews! School communities can recommend books to each other! I think that students and teachers would love to utilize this collaborative network.
While social networking and media seem interesting and innovative now, I can only imagine what time will uncover. New technologies are developing everyday, and I look forward to seeing how they will impact student and teacher learning!
I love the opportunities that social networking provides teachers and students. It is a great way for teachers to participate in professional development. With the role out of CCGPS the state has several blogs with podcasts that teachers can be a part of. They can watch the podcasts and ask questions. It is a great forum for teachers to gain a better understanding of what comes with CCGPS. This is just one way teachers can benefit from using social networking tools.
ReplyDeleteStudents can benefit too. It is a great opportunity for students to discuss and share about assignments. This form of discussion usually leads to a deeper understanding and students are much more likely to be excited about participation.
I am starting to warm up to the idea of using social networking for class discussions. I am terrified that I will be sued because of something that a student posts on facebook or twitter. I like the idea of students using these social networking sites while at school. It would be wonderful to have a silent class discussion while students use smartphones, ipads, or laptops to delve deeper into a subject. After the in class discussion, I wonder if I can post something like “The class discussion is over. Any other posts are unauthorized,” and that will protect me from anything that students post after class time.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the use of social networking in schools is a much-debated topic. I think the reason for this is that people are not educated on the positive uses social networking can have in the schools. It is important to note that it can increase student involvement and achievement.
ReplyDeleteIt is important, as media specialists, to teacher both students and teachers how to use social networking sites. Many teachers are aware of facebook, Myspace and YouTube, however many are unaware of the different sites available in education. I will admit that I had never heard of schoology.com or gaggle.com.
I agree that social networking is new and innovative. I can only imagine the new technologies that are on the horizon. I only hope that teachers embrace the new technology and will feel comfortable incorporating it into their classes.
I love the idea of using social networking to bring together peoples of different languages and cultures. Now, it is possible with the internet. We should be taking advantage of this technology instead of downing it. Yes, It may have its negatives, so does everything else. having students review the books they read makes them a part of the learning community. The media center should be exciting and the place to be for the students. The media specialist should be current on commonly used technologies and be aware of where the students "hang-out". Using social networking will engage students and get them involved again in school. School will become "Cool" again.
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