When many of the social networking sites started up, I thought they were silly and a waste of time. Seeing as I have grown up in a digitalized age, I am aware of myspace and facebook, having subscribed or currently still subscribe, to the sites, but neither one was ever incorporated into my classrooms. In fact, my schools went out of their way to ban and block any attempt in getting onto these sites. Back then, I thought it was the administration just trying to take the fun out of life once again, but now I can see the reasoning behind it. Allowing the use of these sites in school does create a vulnerability for students to use it ways which are not conducive to learning. It can also be complicated and confusing, but it does have many benefits. Blogs, wikis and the like can be set up to create discussions and provide feedback on assignments. Group collaboration is taken to an entirely new level, and provided that the students have internet access, assignments can be worked on with or without groups meetings. There is really an endless amount of possibilities in regards to technology and the use of it in a classroom.
The US News and World Report article points out that twitter, facebook, myspace, and all the other sites out there are just another form of literacy, which is why it is important to use them in the classroom, particularly if students are not going to be exposed to these resources at home. Teaching students how to take responsibility for what they post online, regardless if it is in class or for personal use, is important because they need to understand that nothing is really private. Educating students on the available resources is important because it is what their future holds for them. It is better to teach students how to properly use these sites because that creates a greater potential for trouble to arise.
Many teachers use blogs as a way to engage their students in discussions about what is going on in class. There are so many examples of how this technology is being taken advantage of. One I particularly liked though is how students were given the assignment of two blog posts per week about Hamlet, except they were to post as an assigned character. This not only incorporates a tool that many students are familiar with and interested in, but it also gets them to connect the task to the world. The same idea can be used with facebook or myspace, and it is great because it gets the students to really think about that character and the role they play in the text, in relation to both society and the other characters.
There are instances however were this type of technology can be a negative thing in the classroom. If students are allowed to post anything they want, with no monitoring by the teacher, there is potential for the posts to quickly escalate out of control. This is why it is so important to teach students how to use them, or at least make them aware of the tools out there. If privacy settings are not as tight as they should be, that too is another issue that can quickly turn sour. Students need to be provided with a safe space to blog, but they also need to be taught to be responsible for their online selves.
I do think incorporating technology into the classroom is important, but I am not sure I will use an ongoing site like twitter or facebook. I do like the idea of having blogs for different units, as well as using sites like glogster.com, but I do not know if I am ready, or will ever be ready, to have one updated daily. I may find that it is easier to maintain a blog, or I may decide that it is not for me. One way I may use blogs is in regards to the essential questions for the day/week. It would be neat to post that topic and have the students respond with their comments, be it what they liked, did not like or just overall feedback. Either way, I have a responsibility to my students to make things interesting, appealing and worthwhile, which means utilizing some of the things out there on the web.
