Reasons for teaching Facebook in School

Stumbled on this short post by Ewan MacIntosh titled, "Two reasons for 'teaching Facebook'in school".  He wrote a response to this parents complaint about social media in the classroom:

“Our students don’t need to be a part of a classroom experiment with all this technology stuff. They need to have a real teacher with real textbooks and real tests.”

Head over to his blog to see his response.


[Image captured from facebook homepage: http://www.facebook.com/facebook?ref=pf]

Soft Skills: Networking

The folks in my department where I teach talk a lot about soft skills. We keep asking, how do we give kids some of those abilities needed to be successful beyond their academics? Things like how to interview for a job, workplace behavior and interacting successfully with your employer. This article by Chris Lehmann called Networking and Teaching brought up some of the same points we throw around in our department meetings.

He talks about his lack of skills in working a room and I am reminded of how I used to be involved with some Geography curriculum development in our state. I had to attend gatherings made up of teachers, business people and government representatives. I was awful at working a room. Usually ended up talking with another teacher. If getting legislation passed was based on how well I could work room, we'd still be teaching that the world is flat.

Our department started throwing around the idea of a class to help students create better presentations using Powerpoint and maybe expanding the scope to include professional networking. Our DECA and FBLA students seem to gather a lot of these abilities from their classes and the competitions they attend. We often have them chair meetings with the public and they help run school assemblies. I know I wouldn't have been able to do that when I was 16. Public speaking was torture for me back then. So much so, that friends and family were somewhat shocked to hear I was going into teaching. Goes to show that we can change. We can learn.

[Image: Flickr: "Trademark 101 for Small Business at Network Solutions": Uploaded on September 18, 2008 by shashiBellamkonda: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drbeachvacation/2867858263/]

Selling Social Networks

This article, Go with the Flow: Selling Social Networks has some good information for answering some of the following questions about using social networks in the classroom.

• How can social software enhance learning?
• While using Web-based programs, can students stumble upon inappropriate sites?
• How can we prevent students from disclosing personal information online?
• What about students using the technology for nefarious purposes?
• Do outsiders have access to the Web site the students are using and, thus personal information?
• What about the cost?

If nothing else, it may get conversation started in your building.

[via iLibrarian]
[image: "My social Network on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and MyblogLog": Flickr: Uploaded on November 2, 2007 by luc legay: http://www.flickr.com/photos/luc/1824234195/: Creative Commons]

Ice Skating at Satan's Lava Lake Winter Resort

Our state community college coordinator's held a meeting for all the CTE teachers in my area. I heard something I never thought I would hear in a school sponsored meeting. One of them was talking about recruitment activities and working with new, young teachers in the field. After meeting with the new teachers for several months, they realized that to better serve them, they needed to create a Facebook presence. I was too shocked to ask a follow-up question.

Before this I had never heard the word "FaceBook" or "MySpace" mentioned in a sentence uttered by any school official that didn't also include the words "unsafe", "evil" and "apocalypse".

Things do change.

[Image: "Evil Ice": Flickr: Uploaded on March 3, 2007 by The Adventures of Kristin & Adam: Uploaded on March 3, 2007by The Adventures of Kristin & Adam: Creative Commons]

Number of bloggers growing

I often wonder if blogging has hit it's peak? I wonder if it is just this generation's CB Radio and will fade away leaving only a few of us writing these online diary thinga-ma-bobbers? I wonder if anyone other than my sweet, supportive sister-in-law in Minnesota ever reads my blog?

This article from ars technica says no. Blogging is not dead. At least not yet. Here are a few juicy items from the post.

• 45% of the internet users surveyed have started a blog (up 14% since 2007)
• Asia has the fastest growing population of bloggers (over 70% in several countries)
• 63.5% of us keep a personal blog and most write about their daily life
• 82% of those internet users watch online video (50% increase since 2006)
• Americans would rather read blogs than make them (72% read blogs regularily)

So, I guess I am still going to teach my students how to set up and maintain a blog next year. That's a relief, I thought I might have to plans a few new lessons.

"Thats a Four-Ten Good Buddy. It's time to Get Gone and then Get Horizontal. Over and Out!"

[Image: Typing hands-take two: Uploaded on May 20, 2006 by Tojosan: creative commons]
[Note: My CB is a little rusty...I either said I'm signing off and going to bed. Or that I am dead? My apologies to all you truckers out there...and I'm not dead!]

David Warlick's Social Networking Wiki

David Warlick put out a request to his readers yesterday to participate on building a wiki about Social Networking. He is doing a presentation and wanted to create an example to show his audience. The following questions were posted on wikispaces and almost immediately the document started growing and changing.

1. What is Social Networking?
2. What are some of the differences between how our students use social networking and how professional educators use it?
3. What are your favorite social networking applications?
4. What’s the latest thing you learned from a social network?

Over 100 folks accessed the page and I had a blast going back at various times during the day to look at the changes. It was my first time participating in a collaborative wiki and I gained some useful insight from participating.

[Image: Screenshot from web page: Social Networking for Teachers, http://socialnetworking4teachers.wikispaces.com/ Nov 14, 2007]