chapter 9 Blogs,wikis, podcasts

Social networking in schools is not something I have ever thought about. I know when I was in school is was always blocked from ALL computers in the school. You would get in trouble if you somehow found a way around the blocking and got onto facebook,myspace etc. But to actually read about ways that teachers are using Facebook and Ning (i've never heard of that before) was interesting. I liked how the one class that used Facebook helped the student that became ill to stay in touch. I think that it was also interesting to see that it made the classroom relationship a lot stronger because everyone was able to participate in this experience. I think that as a future teacher it could be a definite possiblity to use a social network in my classroom. I would obviously have to have all my ducks in a row in order to allow this to happen with teh school district. I would have to have set guidelines, reasons why I can use social networks vs. some other form of technology, etc. Facebook is very popular amoung kids these days, I think if I were to present the idea of using facebook in the classroom they would be overjoyed. But there would have to be very specific guidelines on what is acceptable and what is not. Overall, I like the idea of using social networking in my classroom.