Thing Eighteen!

I believe that it is important that educators know how social networking works for many reasons. I think communication is very important for a teacher. Social media sites can be a great way for teachers to connect busy parents through private messages. Social networking can be a valuable tool in improving communication within the school community, both across the entire school, and for individual classes. Using the Lists feature on Facebook, teachers can create a list of all the parents in a class to share status updates, pictures, and other information. Comments on these updates can lead to better communication between parents. They can share tips or ideas on how to help their students succeed. Social networking can also provide a great opportunity for teachers to connect with each other. Facebook can help professional relationships with teachers not only within the same district, but across the country, allowing better knowledge sharing and support networks. One new insight that I learned while exploring Facebook was the Lists feature. I did not know that you could create a list of parents that you could share status updates, pictures, and other information with. I thought it was neat that you could send stuff to only that certain list and no one else would see it. There are always dislikes with these types of social media such as the large online world that sees it. However, I do like Facebook more than Twitter. That is probably because I am more comfortable with Facebook though. I also think that Facebook has more useful features. I have not figured everything out about Twitter yet. I could definitely see classrooms and schools using these sites and having applications for them.


http://www.facebook.com/#!/kelsi.clark2011