Maybe I should start this post with an explanation, my main reason for social networking is to learn and grow professionally. As a teacher I also think it is vitally important that we try and understand our students' world, and where suitable and/or possible implement their tools of expression in the learning environment. As such I applied to join Facebook to find out first hand what it is, to discover what the pull is, what people do on Facebook and to see if it held value for my own professional development and/or as an educational tool.
Recently Social Networking has become a 'buzz' word in Education, networks built on Ning, such as Classroom2.0 and many others, have become hubs of educational discourse and activity. Israel saw the launch of Edureshet the SN for Israeli Educators (built on the Hebrew translation of Ning) and many Israeli Educators have started testing the Facebook waters, I too decided to give Facebook a second shot.
Two days ago I decided that Facebook still didn't 'do it' for me and in order that my friends wouldn't think I was ignoring them posted this status message: "given up on Facebook can be found on twitter or edureshet".
A friend, asking what it was about Facebook that I found so frustrating, made me realise that I had never really tried to pinpoint it.
Wouldn't you know it, I went in to facebook to find out why I didn't like it, only to discover that they have added a wiki application!
Notwithstanding the wiki app, I still don't see myself Facebooking very often, the list of reasons seems to grow longer minute by minute - so here goes...
1) One of my main frustrations is the need to actually go into facebook to get updates. I would much prefer an RSS feed that I could access using the reader of my choice, or pull in to other services, then again, is it neccessary to have an RSS feed to follow the amount of nonstuff that comes through Facebook?
2) The privacy options are still very unclear to me, I've looked at them a few times but find them hard to understand.
3) I find the page organizer very unfriendly and the lack of customization options annoys me.
4) The page that greets me when I enter facebook serves to distract rather than focus. Instead of getting on with work, I find myself either reciprocating to various forms of inane cyber affection/abuse - pinches, pokes, hugs and smiles - or wondering whether I really should bother to compare myself to people I don't even know, or find out just how Jewish I am, which of course will involve giving permission to yet more applications to access my facebook profile.
5) Advertisements - We are not supposed to use services which include ads with our students -
6) The need to allow applications to access their accounts over and over again would make using the service wisely very difficult for the Non English Speaking school student, they would more than likely agree to everything or disallow everything just because they didn't understand what they were being asked.
I realize that not being a particularly social animal or a "fun" person, I am probably not in a position to make the most of what facebook has to offer. But I do wonder how many other users are, like me, just trying to get a picture of what facebook is and will eventually decide it is not for them.
When I just started using Social Networks I found Classroom20 built on the Ning platform to be an excellent entry point and in fact on Classroom 20 I made most of the connections with whom I continue to be in contact today in other networks.
On Ning, discussions and topics are tagged so that information is easy to find. Every blog and forum has an RSS feed. There's no need to add more and more applications in order to participate in conversations or add content from other services. While profile page customization is still limited there are more options and it is much more userfriendly than facebook. Within a Ning Network the opportunity to discuss topics with other members without having to join their circle of friends enables one to make wiser decisions about friend requests.
Today I find twitter to be an extremely useful service for networking with edufriends. When used in conjuction with a messenger - twitter is open all the time, but takes up no browser space, the messenger window just pops open whenever an update is posted, and posts can be made using the same messenger window. If using Gtalk, all twitter notifications are saved in gmail chat archives and therefore searchable. There is an rss feed! (and many other useful applications provided by twitter fans.) Of course twitter updates also include a lot of by the way information, but unlike Facebook, there is no guilt associated with failing to reply.
I will probably regret not counting to 10 before posting but what the heck! Forgive me - it is still New Years Day after all!
Showing posts with label ning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ning. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Creating a Social Network for elementary students
Created in trailfire http://trailfire.com/susant/trailview/53008
Preparing Younger Students for Social Networking Places Langwitches
In her blog Langwitches makes the point that whether social networks are meant for elementary age students or not ..
"It is one of those instances, where you know that the children are going to "do it anyway", no matter what the rules are. The best approach, in my opinion, is you teach them to be safe in any social network environment. So the next best thing would be, since we can't (and wouldn't) all sign-up for MySpace accounts and hang out there, is to create our own Social Network site, where these younger students can try out their wings in a safe and controlled environment."
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181064
KIDS WRITE
Having discovered last year that some of my 5th and 6th grades had opened accounts on a less than savoury SN, I decided this year to open a moderated child friendly network for them. In fact I opened 2 networks one in English for my 6th grade EFL students(trail mark 4) and another in Hebrew for my 5th grades.
This was harder than it may seem as there were at the time no suitable Social Networks in the Hebrew language. Luckily I had the summer vacation to translate the Ning platform ,set it up for right to left languages and learn the var ious options along with other classroom20 members as we played fake "students" (see next trail mark for demo site)
One of my main concerns was the fact that members of a Ning network must sign up with an email address. This address can then be used to send private messages to members' mail boxes.
I decided the best way to deal with this was to set up a catch all mail box on our Google apps (trail mark 5) school mail and have students join the site with a "fake" email address. There are 2 advantages to this system, 1) students do not receive mail from the ning network 2) all mail and "private" messages sent through the network can be viewed by me.
Picking usernames. Past experience has taught me that often my students will pick less than suitable usernames and have a tendency to forget their passwords. As they wouldn't be able to check their own email in the event they needed a password reminder I needed a system which would allow me to easily find their messages in my catchall box. This would also make it easy for me to recognize each student by his email address when accepting membership requests. Each user name is a combination of the classname+childsfirstname - luckily in our school each intake year has a name which stays with them from g1 to g6. (If we didn't have that system I would have had to create it.) I highly reccommend keeping a printed copy of usernames and passwords, having students write them in their diaries and making sure homeroom teacher also gets a copy.
Setting up acceptable use policy/guidelines. I took my students on a guided tour of the already active forums on our school website, pointing out messages where children had obviously forgotten the fact that the forum is not a private messaging system.
We then spent some time creating a set of guidelines. These include: Remember that the web is hackable, do not post private information such as: full name, tel nos. addresses etc. , do not arrange real life meetings through the network - even if you think you are talking to your best friend. Do not post any content that may insult, hurt, embarass or threaten anyone including yourself - this includes text, photos, videos and mp3s. If someone insults, hurts, embarasses or threatens you - report it to me by any means available phone, mail, through the school web site and tell a responsible adult such as a parent, or teacher. Do not reveal your password to anyone, if content violating the guidelines is posted to the site under your user name, your account will be closed until we can discuss the matter in school.
The last step before having students request membership was to have them create or pick an avatar, and to explain that I would not allow photos of themselves, their friends or families.
I see my students once a week, things are moving slowly, some students are taking advantage of the network from home, others are using it only during our lesson. A couple have started writing blogs, others are enjoying uploading pictures and music. So far the kids are working within the guidelines, I'm hoping that will continue to be true, but if not we'll take advantage of the situation to revisit ,review and revise if neccessary .
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181068
Classroom 2.0 Sandbox
Learning the application with an eye to using it in education - security issues, moderation
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181071
EFL20: Ning in the elementary EFL Classroom
In grade 6 we are experimenting, using a ning network as an EFL learning space.
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181077
Google Apps For Education
Gmail and catchall mailbox
Google Talk
Google Calendar
Start Page
Google Docs
Page Creator
Control Panel
Etensibility APIs
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181078
Ning in Education
Ning is sponsoring this network to provide support and help to educators, and to get feedback from the educational community to continue to improve Ning.
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181080
Also worth checking out: imbee.com
Preparing Younger Students for Social Networking Places Langwitches
In her blog Langwitches makes the point that whether social networks are meant for elementary age students or not ..
"It is one of those instances, where you know that the children are going to "do it anyway", no matter what the rules are. The best approach, in my opinion, is you teach them to be safe in any social network environment. So the next best thing would be, since we can't (and wouldn't) all sign-up for MySpace accounts and hang out there, is to create our own Social Network site, where these younger students can try out their wings in a safe and controlled environment."
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181064
KIDS WRITE
Having discovered last year that some of my 5th and 6th grades had opened accounts on a less than savoury SN, I decided this year to open a moderated child friendly network for them. In fact I opened 2 networks one in English for my 6th grade EFL students(trail mark 4) and another in Hebrew for my 5th grades.
This was harder than it may seem as there were at the time no suitable Social Networks in the Hebrew language. Luckily I had the summer vacation to translate the Ning platform ,set it up for right to left languages and learn the var ious options along with other classroom20 members as we played fake "students" (see next trail mark for demo site)
One of my main concerns was the fact that members of a Ning network must sign up with an email address. This address can then be used to send private messages to members' mail boxes.
I decided the best way to deal with this was to set up a catch all mail box on our Google apps (trail mark 5) school mail and have students join the site with a "fake" email address. There are 2 advantages to this system, 1) students do not receive mail from the ning network 2) all mail and "private" messages sent through the network can be viewed by me.
Picking usernames. Past experience has taught me that often my students will pick less than suitable usernames and have a tendency to forget their passwords. As they wouldn't be able to check their own email in the event they needed a password reminder I needed a system which would allow me to easily find their messages in my catchall box. This would also make it easy for me to recognize each student by his email address when accepting membership requests. Each user name is a combination of the classname+childsfirstname - luckily in our school each intake year has a name which stays with them from g1 to g6. (If we didn't have that system I would have had to create it.) I highly reccommend keeping a printed copy of usernames and passwords, having students write them in their diaries and making sure homeroom teacher also gets a copy.
Setting up acceptable use policy/guidelines. I took my students on a guided tour of the already active forums on our school website, pointing out messages where children had obviously forgotten the fact that the forum is not a private messaging system.
We then spent some time creating a set of guidelines. These include: Remember that the web is hackable, do not post private information such as: full name, tel nos. addresses etc. , do not arrange real life meetings through the network - even if you think you are talking to your best friend. Do not post any content that may insult, hurt, embarass or threaten anyone including yourself - this includes text, photos, videos and mp3s. If someone insults, hurts, embarasses or threatens you - report it to me by any means available phone, mail, through the school web site and tell a responsible adult such as a parent, or teacher. Do not reveal your password to anyone, if content violating the guidelines is posted to the site under your user name, your account will be closed until we can discuss the matter in school.
The last step before having students request membership was to have them create or pick an avatar, and to explain that I would not allow photos of themselves, their friends or families.
I see my students once a week, things are moving slowly, some students are taking advantage of the network from home, others are using it only during our lesson. A couple have started writing blogs, others are enjoying uploading pictures and music. So far the kids are working within the guidelines, I'm hoping that will continue to be true, but if not we'll take advantage of the situation to revisit ,review and revise if neccessary .
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181068
Classroom 2.0 Sandbox
Learning the application with an eye to using it in education - security issues, moderation
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181071
EFL20: Ning in the elementary EFL Classroom
In grade 6 we are experimenting, using a ning network as an EFL learning space.
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181077
Google Apps For Education
Gmail and catchall mailbox
Google Talk
Google Calendar
Start Page
Google Docs
Page Creator
Control Panel
Etensibility APIs
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181078
Ning in Education
Ning is sponsoring this network to provide support and help to educators, and to get feedback from the educational community to continue to improve Ning.
View mark summary
http://trailfire.com/susant/marks/181080
Also worth checking out: imbee.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
