Social networking - It's not just for students

"People nowadays like to be together not in the old-fashioned way of, say, mingling on the piazza of an Italian Renaissance city, but, instead, huddled together in traffic jams, bus queues, on escalators and so on. It’s a new kind of togetherness which may seem totally alien, but it’s the togetherness of modern technology." - J.G. (James Graham) Ballard

The exploration of social networking sites is the one assignment for EDES 501 that I have been dreading the most. I am one of those (possibly few) people who doesn't want everyone in the world to be able to make contact with me, or know everything about me. I don't want to share information about me, my job or my family on the web; I'd rather share it with people whom I know, or am connecting with by choice, such as people in this course. I don't want my high school students to add me as a "friend" to their social networking sites, and to be honest, the thought of it seems a little odd. I also don't need/want old acquaintances to connect with me through a social networking site just to say that they have one more "friend." If they really need to get a hold of me because they want to visit/reminisce, then they can call my parents to find out where I am. Furthermore, articles such as Faceless no more: Social networking comes with a price, found in the Globe and Mail, Sept. 12, 2008, make me feel very uneasy about putting too much personal information out on the internet. So, for these reasons, I swore that I would never join a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace, and I procrastinated all fall about becoming a member of one of these sites. (By the way, this didn't help with my negative feelings about this topic (-; )
However, now comes the time when I have to re-evaluate what little I know of these sites. I began my search by checking in with Lee Lefever at Social Networking in Plain English. He manages to simplify the concept, and make it appear beneficial for all involved.

Having done this, I decided that if I was going to join a social networking site, it would be to my advantage if I could find a site that would be useful to me and what I am doing now. So I began my search by finding out what was "out there." Using the keywords "social networking sites" brought up a site called Social Networking God: 350+ Social Networking Sites - who knew that there were soooo many??? I scrolled through these, but there wasn't anything very appealing. So I decided to narrow down my search by adding "educational" to "social networking sites." This is when I stumbled upon the Social Networks in Education wiki which is an extensive list of sites, and Ning in Education. As I was checking out Ning in Education, I discovered its "sister" site Classroom 2.0 - this looked very appealing to me, and I decided to join this Ning because I could connect with people and learn more about Web 2.0 tools being used in classrooms. According to Wikipedia, "[t]he unique feature of Ning is that anyone can create their own custom social network for a particular topic or need, catering to specific audiences." Perfect - this is exactly what I needed!

I created my profile page to reflect me, (I chose a profile that reminds me of summer) and I proceeded to invite my classmates from EDES 501 who had included their email addresses in their profiles, as well as a couple of colleagues from school whom I thought might be interested in exploring and learning about web 2.0 tools. I then joined the Digiskills group and the Free & Open Source Software group - both of these groups' names sounded daunting, but once I explored their spaces, they seemed accessible to me.

What are the positives about joining a social networking site?

For Me Personally:

So far, I am happy that I have joined this Ning, as it doesn't require a great deal of personal information about me, and I am able to connect with people from around the world who have similar interests. I have spent enough time exploring it, that I have managed to figure out how to manoeuver my way through it, and not only that, but I spent hours following links located in a discussion about what web 2.0 tools others are using in the classroom, and how they are using them. This has led me to discover many more great sites such as teacherstv, yackpack, authorSTREAM, Bubbl.us, Quizlet and Gabcast to mention only a few.

For Colleagues:

"Social networking in education opens doors to an unprecedented array of learning opportunities in an environment where educators often feel freer to express themselves, share their ideas and be catalysts for change." PBS Teachers - Learning.now blog

A Ning is a great way for teachers within a district who are teaching the same courses, or who have similar interests to communicate and share ideas. It allows for professional development without having to organize a time and place for people to meet. It could also provide support and opportunities for teachers who are isolated due to geographical reasons to collaborate with other teachers or classes. An example of this could be found in the Digiskills group that I joined, where a U.S. based teacher put out a request for anyone interested in doing some type of collaborative voicethread project with students at his school. There were 5 people who indicated interest, one of whom was from Australia. What a great opportunity for both teachers and students!

For Students:

"Depending on the role of school in their lives, youth leverage these structures for educational purposes - asking questions about homework, sharing links and resources, and even in some cases asking their teachers for information outside of the classroom. SNSs do not make youth engage educationally; they allow educationally-motivated youth with a structure to engage educationally." Apophenia: The Economist Debate on Social "Networking"

Online Social Networking And Education: Study Reports On New Generations Social And Creative Interconnected Lifestyles is an interesting look at an online study conducted by Grunwald Associates LLC in cooperation with the National School Boards Association. Although the information in this study is American-based, I believe that the numbers are similar for Canadian students as well. This study shows that over 96% of students use social networking sites and "[a]lmost 60 percent of students who use social networking talk about education topics online and, surprisingly, more than 50 percent talk specifically about schoolwork."Most students have had exposure to using social networking sites in their personal lives, but perhaps it's time for educators to tap into these sites as a form of connecting students with others in education. I think that it would be great for students who are studying a second (third, fourth) language to be in contact with others who speak it fluently. But there are other collaborative possiblities as well where classes from opposite ends of the earth could connect and share their learning experience, or perhaps an English class could connect with an author whose work is being studied in class. I think it is a matter of looking beyond Facebook and Myspace and creating a Ning for students to use.

What are possible negatives of joining a social networking site?

Of course there are issues of personal safety that need to be considered when joining a social networking site. CNN recently published Social networking sites dos and don'ts which relates more to what career people, or those looking for jobs should/shouldn't be putting on their sites, but much of this list can apply directly to our high school students. It is important for students to realize that they are leaving their technological footprint which is almost impossible to erase. They might not want to be associated with certain activities or people when they are applying for scholarships or jobs.

So, despite the fact that I was opposed to social networking, I was quite limited in my knowledge of how these sites could work, and I am glad that I have explored this topic further.