Bring Social Networking into the classroom

    Social networking, the first thing that may come to your mind is facebook or Myspace right? You might even correlate it with time wasters or dangerous, nothing of a benefit.  So why on earth would a teacher want to bring social networking into a classroom?  
     There is more to social networks than facebook and Myspace, there is blogging like what we are doing here, to voice your opinions and  to be heard and to read others opinions. There are podcasts that give information that students are looking for while researching. 
    One website, edutopia , is calling it " academic networking" because it is important to teach our students how to collaborate using different programs. The students can share their ideas and internet sources on these networks and receive feedback from people all over. With online bookmarking networks, you share what you have bookmarked and your friends on the site can look at the sites that you have bookmarked because you think they are beneficial. 
   Some schools are even bringing twitter into the classroom. Some teachers are using it to gather data, taking polls, and other creative projects. It is a good way to have all the data you are  collecting go to one spot. Twitter engages the students in so many different ways. There are  some good ideas at 12 Expert Twitter Tips for the Classroom.
   Social networking is a great way for your students to collaborate with other students all around the United states, even the world. You can literally bring the world to there fingertips. I am still unsure how I would want to incorporate social networking in my classroom. I do know that I would have to become more familiar with all the different social networks. While in the classroom working, monitoring the networks will be essential.  I wouldn't want my students to be collaborating with the wrong people or some how venture to a site that is inappropriate. Although  there are risks with anything, I do think this would be a very beneficial technological step to take in junior high and high schools. 
    



images: cellphone, flickr.com by coblat123, social networks icons, iconlover.com