I am creating my wiki chapter based on getting students to create their own media to enhance their own learning. Through my research I have found many different activities, and even used activities that I m doing in this class, and other classes of my own. These actives range from blogs, to glogs, to creating a song.
One problem I have ran into is the idea of using a social networking website in the classroom. First of all, I do not have Facebook. I believe it creates problems in relationship, and people share personal information that should absolutely not be on the internet. I recognize that it does have it upsides, but my obstacle s how to I rationalize using it when I do not favor it myself.
I have talked about using twitter, because you can follow writers, famous actors, and educators, but it is hard for me to too see a real benefit from using faceook.
How much die should the instructor have in the group is Facebook is used?
Would students have a separate account for class, and if not how could the teacher control what the other "bad stuff" on their profile is?
Just a few thoughts to consider, I would love some feedback from someone who has any idea how to make this a successful task in the classroom!!
The semester I took teaching reading there was a big discussion about just this subject. The general consensus is that most schools sites like Facebook are blocked. The suggestion was to create a fake Facebook on the class web page. However, the students remade themselves as the character they were reading in class. The conversation were what would have taken place in that time period. The students became the character, and answered as the character. The instructor mediated the project, but needed to nothing to propel the conversations forward. The kids were excited about the project, so they became very involved.
ReplyDeleteI like what Lynn is saying about "becoming a character." I think that this connects students of today with the texts that they are reading for class.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on facebook...I don't see the specific purpose of using it in a classroom. I DO have a facebook, but I would never want to friend my students or have my students use it for class. I think if you could find a website like facebook...it could be really useful.
Take our MCpop ning for example. It allows you to create a profile and share certain amounts of information about yourself...without it being too much. You can also "friend" people (did you get my friend request? haha) and can post comments and participate in a discussion. I think you could have a really cool classroom atmosphere by combining what Lynn said with an actual website. Also...if you have an awesome conversation in class, but just didn't get to everything because there wasn't time to continue with it, you could always assign as homework to continue the conversation on the "facebook" page.
Hope this helps! I was grappling with this idea too at the beginning of this class. =)