Social Networks

Social networks are becoming the norm among people.  We use the lingo in everyday lift, such as "Facebook me" and "Tweet me."  I didn't join Facebook until I was traveling in Australia for a summer holiday, and even then I was reluctant because I didn't see the draw of it.  I quickly learned it was a good way to stay up to date on people's lives who I didn't see all the time.  I was "friended" by many people in a short time, and unfortunately, to this day, I'm not an expert on Facebook.  It's a good way to keep in touch with my international friends for free.  Now, since I'm in Germany, it's a good way for me to keep up-to-date on the lives of my family at home.  I log on every few days to read some updates, and that's about it.

I also never understood the draw of Twitter, either.  However, this past summer, I just started a Twitter account, and I have become obsessed.  As a teacher, I rarely have time to watch the news and learn what is happening in the world outside my school.  Twitter has changed all that!  My sister introduced me to the wonderful world of Twitter.  I follow so many different topics that keep me in the loop about many different things.  I now understand how it works, which is the whole reason why I never did it before.  It's brilliant.  I follow feeds from CNN, BBC, ESPN, the White House,  and NPR, which all keep me updated on news around the planet.  It's embarrassing to say, but I had no idea that a volcano had erupted in Iceland until about 3 days later!  I'm a workaholic, and I was always focused on the lives of my students.  With Twitter, I can get my news in 140 characters or less!  Like I said, brilliant!
I also follow tons of education feeds.  I follow PBS, TeachGov, NSF, TeachHub, and Science Friday, just to name a few.  I learn about projects that need funding through DonorsChoose.  I learn what's happening at the Museum of Science and Industry by following MSIChicago.  It's a great way to get short bits of information at a time, and let's face it, as teachers, sometimes we only have a short bit of time to do anything.

My students, on the other hand, use social networks to take the place of actual oral communication or face to face communication.  I witness it with some of my former students.  They "tweet" to one another and have a full conversation in a span of a few minutes.  The same thing happens on Facebook when they "comment" on statuses.  One of my former students follows me on Twitter.  I, in turn, followed her.  After two days, I had to "unfollow" her because her "tweets" were coming every five minutes!  I didn't care that she was sitting in church.  Then that she was listening to some guy preach about Jesus.  Then that she was leaving church.  Then that she was getting in her car to go home.  Get the idea?  My students have lost some of the ability to communicate with one another in a face to face environment because they are so used to "tweeting" or "facebooking".  In their lives, a lot of students leave school and are immediately on these networks and are using them to communicate with a lot of people at once.  I think it gives them validation because they post something and many others can reply and make them feel good or bad about themselves, but they are getting attention, and most of the time, that is all teenagers want.

I'm writing this as a high school teacher.  I'm sure that elementary school teachers may feel differently than I do because their students may not have been exposed to the world of social networks...yet!

RSS lab

After completing the RSS feeds using Google reader, I have decided that it's not for me.  I much prefer getting updates from Twitter.  I think the thing that irks me the most is that it only shows 100 (I think it is) updates at once.  I can continuously read Twitter updates, and Twitter will update it for me, so I don't have to keep going to the next page.  For me, Twitter works much better.  I understand that not everyone Tweets updates, which is an advantage for the RSS feed, but I'm not a fan.

The RSS lab was very educational to me because I had never used the RSS feeds before.  Since my sister recommended it, I set up by feed using Google Reader. It seemed simple enough to follow different feeds.  I set up the Google Reader, and then I did my best to check them every few days.  I noticed that feeds from National Public Radio, or NPR, were extremely plentiful every day.  One of the feeds that I had chosen to follow was CNN.  CNN also had many stories per day.  I followed a few different blogs, including Roger Ebert’s blog and one called the Edublogger.  Both blogs had some new stories, but not as many as the others.

I decided to follow websites that would cover the things that would interest me the most.  The Edublogger explains a step by step process for using student blogs in the classroom.  Each post explained the next step for teaching students to establish blogs of their own.  TeachHub is a great website done by teachers for teachers, and it has anything and everything relating to teaching.  I’ve gotten many good ideas from TeachHub to use in my classroom.  One thing I learned from TeachHub was a Healthy Living Activity and creating a "Go Green" song.  They were great lesson plans!  Roger Ebert, though film is his background, gives updates about news, technology, and science.  Although he may have seemed like an odd choice, he writes blogs about many important topics in our society and directs his followers where to get more information about certain topics.   CNN is an excellent news source, and I use CNN Student News in my classroom quite regularly.  Scientific American is a website which has a daily segment called, “60 Second Science,” that I use as my bell ringer assignment nearly every day.  I also read a great idea from SA called "Bring Science Home" where students and parents do little science projects together at home.  NSF Discoveries from the National Science Foundation gives updates on NSF funded projects, which I sometimes use to show the real world applications of science.  NSF gave some great innovative projects that I could use in the classroom to inspire!

When I first became a teacher, I was told to “beg, borrow, or steal” any good lessons that I may see.   The TeachHub website allows me access to many different ideas for my classroom.  Using inspirational quotes, doing fun differentiated instruction, and giving ideas for classroom management are just some of the ideas that I have read about on TeachHub.  Every day, Scientific American has a new podcast that covers a scientific topic in 60 seconds or less.   It’s a great way to get my students thinking about science immediately when class begins.   CNN Breaking News covers any major topic that is happening during the day, and many times, education or science may be a part of that.  I like to have my students watch the CNN Student News videos to help them be aware of the world around them.  

After completing this lab, I realized that I am not a fan of RSS feeds.  I much prefer a service like Twitter to have short bursts of news, and when one catches my eye, I can investigate it further.  There were too many times when I would view my Google Reader, and there would be many new stories, but they were only coming from one or two sources.  Then I’d have to sort through all of them to see if there was any information that could interest me.  Perhaps using an RSS feed for different students would be beneficial because it would allow them to build up some credible sources to use for research.  I think I may try that out in my class, and see if they have better success with the RSS feeds than I did.  RSS feeds in the classroom may help students recognize the difference between primary sources and secondary sources.

Screen shots for CEP 810

My RSS feed page in Google ReaderC

Comment on my friend, Kathryn's blog.  She is a middle school science teacher.

810 Blogging Lab

Traditional web pages and blogs have many differences.  In the beginning, traditional web pages were full of factual information, and most were used for research purposes.  I can remember using the Internet in high school for research, and it was a huge project because no one knew how to cite sources since the concept was very new.  Blogging, on the other hand, is mostly opinion; people who are giving their side of some sort of story.  It could be a scientist talking about global warming or a historian talking about the Holocaust.  I feel that the line between traditional web pages and blogs is now becoming blurred because no one seems to know if all the information on a website is accurate.  It takes a lot of confirmation from many different sources to ensure that it's truthful information.