Room at the Top

It’s become rather difficult to pick an article when I roam through Google Reader. There are simply too many to choose from, so what does that tell us? Facebook and Myspace are taking over schools; oh who am I kidding, the world!

A recent article that I found discussed the steps that the Darlington School District (South Carolina) is taking to bring Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube into the classrooms. Their goal is to enhance learning in and out of the building. I have become rather torn over the issue of Facebook and Myspace in the classrooms. There are advantages and disadvantages as I have pointed out both, but I understand that as educators we need to be realistic about this situation, and realistically, Facebook and Myspace are only going to get bigger and better.

So, as the old saying says, “if you can’t beat em’, join em’.” Darlington has decided to join them, and students will interact with their teachers and fellow classmates right along side of posting on walls, listing their favorite movies, and changing their profile song. The site will allow for students to ask their teachers questions from home, interact with classmates from home, and accomplish assignments from home. Notice how all of this is done from home, which reminds me of that dreaded, dirty work. You know it, “homework.” Every student hates homework, but I truly believe it is crucial to a student’s learning experience. The challenge is to get students to complete it, and if it is on Facebook or Myspace, chances are the students are too. That means they just might get their homework done, and maybe even enjoy it. This all means that the learning won’t stop when the bell rings, which can only be a good thing from an academic perspective.

The district claims that subjects like history will now be able to be brought to life. I can see this being done through interactive web pages, discussion boards, and pictures and videos. This sounds a little bit more interesting than the old globe and pull down map. So what can be done with English? The obvious options come to mind. Discussion board, posting stories and essays would all be good uses of the web. What about something a little more creative? How about something all students love, music, or even movies (Dan Modderman)! Students could post their own lyrics, write a scene from a movie script, whatever it may be, and share it online. It doesn’t really matter what the students are posting, that isn’t the point right now. The subject matter is the fact that students will feel more comfortable posting their work rather than standing in front of a class of their peers and reading it aloud. It seems that the student would produce a more personal, better piece of work this way. I know when I was in high school I would regulate what I wrote so that it didn’t get too personal if I had to read it in front of class. Students will feel more comfortable writing responses as well, meaning students would be, you better believe it, interacting, the “holy grail” of most educators.

Back to the article now. Darlington would be preparing their students for the world that is rapidly becoming more technologically based by the day. This is good. Their students will likely be spending more time on school related subjects after school hours, another plus. And finally, students might feel free to express themselves on a more personal, meaningful level and then interact because of this. I’m speechless. School districts have to learn to harness the power of online social networking in their classrooms, and if done successful, great things can happen.

Source: Google News: News Channel 15: Myrtle Beach

Author: News Channel 15 Satff

Title: Schools Look to Social-Networking Websites

Link:http://www.wpde.com/news/viewarticle.asp?view=7170

Eric: http://ideamen.edublogs.org/

Eli: http://ebarsy.uniblogs.org/

Hilary: http://hpiette.uniblogs.org/

Watch out Facebook and Myspace, there is a new network in town, www.linkgrade.com , and this time, academics is the focus. BORING, I thought. How is a  site focused on school going to become popular, I mean most of the kids “addicted” to Facebook are on because they are doing everything they can to avoid any school-related activity.  But I kept reading because this did sound like a pretty interesting site, and sure enough by the end I now think the ideas here are pretty innovative.

Students can go on linkgrade.com and “publish or receive notes from class, get to know others in their specific classes, or even rate their professors.” There is an application called whiteboard which is “an interactive chat room that allows students to talk with each other and draw diagrams if needed.” This is a whole new type of networking available to students, it is going to allow for new viewpoints to be opened up to each other when in the past some might have been too shy to give their, or too shy to ask. It will prove to be an entirely new form of a study guide, and the best part about it is it can be done while students are networking and getting to know one another like they do on Facebook and Myspace.

So what issues does this new site bring to education? Well, how much help is too much help? Right now the site is only available to college kids as Facebook was in its early stages, (likgrade.com was first launched on September 10, 2007. ) but as we have learned from the past, it is only a matter of time until high schools will have access as well. As for college kids, it might make it too easy to sleep through the 8:00 a.m. class if there are ten different sets of notes that they can get off the web. But what kind of problems would it pose to high schools if/when it is available to these students? Right away the teacher rating application stands out to me. How many problems haven’t there been where a student rants on about a teacher on their blog, calls him or her a name, and the student gets suspended or in some other kind of trouble. Sure rating teachers is fine in college, but if a student were to talk bad about a teacher in high school there might be some consequences, or at least some bitterness between the teacher and student. Also the sites layout almost seems to make it easy for a student to do minimal work, and come test time, could go to the notes posted online, and study. This is taking away from the classroom work, and would change the entire idea of notes and teacher-student relationship because instead of going to a teacher for help, the student will just jump online to linkgrade.com and go to the notes or talk with another student. Another problem I see with the note sharing and whiteboard is the fact of the possibility of a student being wrong. What happens when a student posts incorrect notes, another student copies then, studies for the test, and does poorly on the test. Whose fault is it; will there be issues between the two students?

Source: Brock Press (blog)

Author: Katie Siklosi

Title: Home-grown Internet network a powerful new tool for school

An interesting post titled “Facebook: cyber-suburbia” popped up on Google Reader today from the blog “Social Creature.” It makes the statement that Facebook has become a social-suburbia in comparison to Myspace. “You have to be kidding me,” I thought. See I am not a very big fan of the ongoing “battle” between the two sites; it gets a little annoying sometimes. But as I kept reading I began to see the issues that this social separation might cause in schools. The post claims that Myspace is a site for the freaks and geeks, the burnouts and queers, for the “teens who plan on going into the military after school,” for the “kids who are socially ostracized at school.” Facebook then is the site for the “jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids.”

After reading this I asked myself what this meant for a teen’s experience at school. Immediately I though back to the day when you walk down the hallway to your locker and along the way are the group of jocks standing in their jerseys, the good looking girls looking, well, good, the burnouts sitting in the corner, or the smart kids studying away. This vast range of clicks can be hard on a student who does not fit in, a new student or someone who wants to be a part of two groups. Wow I thought, now students can’t leave this at the door when they leave school, it follows then home to their computer where they join groups, tag photos, write posts and messages, and list their favorite music and movies. This means that students will feel the pressure to define themselves in every way possible. The movies they like, the music they have playing, the pictures they have, the number of online friends they have all will contribute to define their social status and group. I will be blunt when I say this is not only terrible for the generations to come, but it is purely pathetic.

So what does this all mean? Is it really all that big of a deal or is it just going to be another aspect of the teenager’s society that is sometimes hard to understand when looking back. Well I believe that this social labeling that the two sites have created is a big deal and it will only separate students even more in the hallways. “Oh don’t talk to him, he is a Myspace creep,” or “there goes the Facebook jock, what a prep!” Teenagers have it hard enough trying to fit in and deal with criticism at school no matter how popular they are. Their lives and popularity should not be defined by their Myspace or Facebook page that is too superficial for even middle schools and high schools.

Source: Social Creature (blog)

Author: Jenks

Title: Facebook: Cyber-suburbia

It wasn’t exactly easy to chose my topic for the semester, so I figured what not make it all about being online. I am going to be focusing my blog on the use and issues of social networking in high schools and middle schools. This as we all know refers to Myspace, blogging, and Facebook, three dominant “hangouts” for the modern world. These three sites are changing the school world that we all once knew. Kids are gossiping on people’s “walls” now instead of doing it by their locker. They are information about themselves instead of telling that boy or girl about it face-to-face, and they are posting pictures of themselves and their friends. Through this blog I will tackle the heated debate that has become “social networking in schools.”

I can honestly say that Facebook , blog sites, and Myspace don’t necessarily spark any personal interest. In fact I don’t even have a Myspace account, a void that seems rather rare these days. What does interest me however is the issues that surround the sites in school. Issues such as teacher and student bashing are taking place on the social domain, gossip is everywhere, and what seems to be most prevalent is the evidence that gets kids in trouble. These issues aren’t the main focus of this blog though. What I/we need to focus on is the way in which teachers can use these social networking as tools for their classrooms. In order to do this I have subscribed to multiple web pages via reader.google.com and my RSS Reader. Two “main stream” sites that I will be using will be: cnn.com, and nytimes.com. Also I will be searching topics such as “social networking in schools,” and “facebook in schools” with news.google.com. I have subscribed to a few blogs as well: prawfsblawg.com, and social-creature.com. All of these sites will hopefully provide good information regarding schools and social networking sites.

I personally feel that educators are better off trying to adapt their classroom to the world that is online networking. These sites are only going to bet bigger and more popular, and students are only going to be spending more time on them. Harnessing the popularity of these sites to use for school work would be an amazing way to get students involved in subjects such as writing, a subject that seems to be tough to get students fired up about. Myspace and Facebook would definitely require some imagination to make this work, but blogging, like I am doing right now, would be a great way to combine the modern student’s interest with a subject that desperately needs to be revived. Through the combined use of new sites, google, and feeds I plan on generating a solid discussion regarding social networking, schools, and writing.