WHAT IS SOCIAL NETWORKING?
According to David Warlick, social networking includes:
- the process of initiating, developing and maintaining friendships and collegial or professional relationships for mutual benefit. Current discussions surrounding social networking deal with web-based or technology-mediated tools, interactions, and related phenomena, but social networking occurs in many forms, including face to face.
- person-to-person exchanges that can be classified as question and answer, point and counterpoint, announcement and support.
- technologies that facilitate social networking tend to emphasize ease of use, spontaneity, personalization, exchange of contacts, and low-end voyeurism.Some technologies that are often considered social networking technologies may not be socially oriented in and of themselves, but the communities that form around such technologies often demonstrate key elements of social networking (for example, the discussion communities that form around collaboratively authored wiki content).
Warlick suggests the following as examples of popular social networking technologies:
- discussion boards or newsgroups
- instant messaging, e.g. MSN, AIM, and ICQ
- text-messaging or SMS
- message logging and sharing, such as Twitter
- document sharing and controlled collaborative authoring, such as Zoho or Google Docs & Spreadsheets
- loosely structured collaborative authoring and information sharing, such as Wikipedia
- photo sharing, such as Flickr and Picasa
- video sharing, such as YouTube
- blogs (life-sharing, news analysis, and editorializing)
- online communities, such as Nings, Facebook, etc.
- Second Life - sort of a combination of many of the above communication and collaborative tools
POPULAR SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES:
- Ning - A Ning is a platform that connects invited users to interact with one another through discussion boards, personal spaces, video links, and more. A central administrator oversees who is allowed to join the site, the types of posts made, and design of the site.
- Facebook - Facebook has replaced MySpace in popularity. Facebook is a site that allows users to "friend" one another, post updates, play games, upload photos, create and join groups, upload videos, and comment on others content. Users have control over who is allowed to see their content.
- LinkedIn - Unlike Facebook which was originally started as a way for university students to connect with one another, LinkedIn is a networking site meant for professionals. There are LinkedIn networks for accountants, teachers, psychologists, and more.
- Twitter - Users are limited to 140 character posts. Users "friend" one another in order to follow the updates of a particular Twitter user. Each update is called a tweet. Innovators of Twitter have used this application to inform their network of friends of interesting content on the web and to create "Twitter Stories."
- Voice Thread - This is an application that allows users to upload images, presentation slides, or videos, record narration for them, and post them to share. It is a social networking site in that it also allows other users to also comment on the uploaded presentation. There is even a specific section of this site with added security for teachers and students called Ed.VoiceThread.
WHAT ARE THE CONCERNS WITH USING SOCIAL NETWORKS IN SCHOOLS?
Having read through the above articles, what are THE CONCERNS?
WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF USING SOCIAL NETWORKS IN SCHOOLS?
Having read through the above articles, what are THE ADVANTAGES?
HOW CAN EDUCATORS USE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES IN THE CLASSROOM?
How do you think social networks might be used in the classroom? Add your ideas into the "Comments" section below.
THE HOW-TO's:
Megan Golding has a number of wonderful suggestions and directions for how to establish privacy settings on your Facebook account. Her post includes why it is important to separate your "student friends" from other "friends" in your network.
Teachers Teaching Teachers hosts a podcast about how to use Voice Thread in the classroom.
Making the Case for VoiceThread is a well-written blog post with examples and information by Wes Fryer
Web2Telegraph offers a great step-by-step explanation of using VoiceThread in the classroom
Ning in Education is a Ning all about how to use Nings in education.
RESOURCES:
- SocialNetworking4Teachers - David Warlick had assembled a wonderful wiki all about how social networking can work for students and educators alike.
- Classroom 2.0 is a Ning website for educators. This site helps to connect teachers around issues of technology.