Social Networks

The social web provides a great place for people to interact and communicate with one another.  This purpose allows people to share their ideas and thoughts, which can help solve problems.  As mentioned in previous chapters, many people are smarter than one person by themselves, because we can share and expand on each other’s knowledge.  In an educational setting, this is beneficial because students can use facebook or ning to discuss homework assignments or ask questions.   Part of me feels that a teacher could use any other form of technology, such as blogs to do this same task.  On the other hand, though, I feel that facebook may be more beneficial because everyone is familiar with it and therefore will be more motivated to use this in the class for various tasks/projects.  They will already have accounts set up and they won’t have to take up more time learning how to use a different site.  Since so many people have accounts, a neat idea would be to contact other people who specialize in certain topics.  This would not only bring in new information and motivate the students more, but can give the students another resource that they could use to find additional information.  This is particularly important in today’s classroom because teachers shouldn’t just have students memorize random facts that they won’t remember when they can always just look it up.  The chapter gave an example of how one classroom that used facebook, the classroom enrollment went up.  If I can motivate just one student to come to class because of this, it would be in my best interest to use facebook.    

                As a future teacher, the main reason I would like to use facebook in my classroom is not only for the fact that they can share information, but because it could create more of community.  The students can learn more about each other, their dislikes and interests.  They will become more respectful of each other by knowing this information and therefore will be more likely to work better with each other in the classroom.  They won’t be afraid to discuss possible solutions even if they may be wrong and express their creativity.  Using facebook for this purpose would have its perimeters, though.  I would have to teach students about cyber bullying and work with them to prevent any teasing from occurring.  It would provide a great opportunity to integrate this with a health lesson too.  I feel that it is also important to incorporate facebook in the classroom because they should be shown how they can use it to share information, instead of just talking with friends.  It could also be neat to involve parents and teach them how to check what their kids are doing and how to make sure they are safe.