Here we go again, and hopefully no frozen computer this time! Thanks for the suggestions, but I could not retrieve it even though I thought there was autosoave as well.
I did create a Twitter account the other night and subscribed to several Science and Health related sites (tweets... I do not know the right terminology) I imagine once I get used to Twitter I might try using it next year for a few short assignments. Perhaps I could tweet a science current event or news of a medical breakthrough and have students respond to it. Another possibility would be to have students write a brief summary of an assigned article to read. Without a smart phone, I must limit my reading of tweets to my home computer.
I have a Facebook already that I created last summer. I was always curious about what kids were talking about, but resisted for quite some time. When my oldest son got an internship at Facebook last summer, I decided I needed to be on board so I knew what he was doing and could talk about projects he was working on. It was also nice to see the photos he posted of his summer in CA. He will work at Facebook full time upon graduating from college this month. I have declined friend requests from current and former students who are at WHS, but I have reacquainted with former students who are "all grown up" and it is nice to see how they are doing. I have also connected with former classmates out of state and relatives in Canada and Germany. For me, relationships online through Facebook do not replace face to face relationships. They are additional contacts that perhaps I ordinarily would not have. I imagine for some people though, certain online relationships can be very meaningful. Others have thousands of "friends"... I do not see how that can be meaningful!
Social networking sites are very popular with kids today because they seem to be more of a "me" generation. Kids want to share everything about themselves and get the attention of everyone around them in some cases. They also get the instant gratification of near immediate feedback. It can be a positive thing though, if done in moderation. Kids can learn social and technical skills that they need to be competent in this digital age. It allows them to explore interests, communicate with others who have similar interests, and experiment with different forms of self expression .
What a background you have! Wow! Social Networking has become a powerful tool for everything from marketing your food truck (with Twitter) to lobbying the BOE to be allowed back into your senior prom (Facebook group in Shelton, CT). I feel that teachers and administrators need to learn about this just to keep up with their parents and students. It has become our society's go-to form of communication.
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