Have you ever visited or perhaps heard stories of someone’s experiences living in an isolated community? The pleasures, the rewards, the perils of living in remote areas? Having lived in an isolated community for the past twenty years, I can attest firsthand to these pleasures... to these hardships... being at such a distance from family and friends. But more than the personal aspect, these qualities can apply to teaching as well. Small class sizes, few management issues, individualized instruction. But with only one teacher working with multiple levels, there are challenges in implementing programs... few colleagues to collaborate with.... and even fewer opportunities for professional growth. That is until the advent of online professional forums such as distance education, webcasts... and more recently social networking.
What’s staggering are the number of registered users of the various websites, the largest being Facebook, with over 500 million. And as stated in their Press Room, 50% of the active users log on to Facebook any given day!
Although I was aware of Facebook because it seemed that everyone around me was “facebooking”, I was somewhat skeptical about joining as I was leary about the privacy issues and was not interested in getting a “minute-by-minute” account of a person’s day, as it seemed some people used it for. But as with the motto of my course “give it an honest chance”, I proceeded to register for an account and was going to try to keep an open mind.
After previewing the interface, I first created a profile page, added a profile picture and then began searching for family and friends to request as "Friends". From there, I adjusted my settings so that only friends could view my conversations and others could only see my profile and photos. As this was my first time setting up a social netowrking account, it helped having my daughter at my side to guide me with this initial set up. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I was surprised at the number of people that requested to be my friend. This concept of others reaching out to be “my friend” gave me a good feeling. They included old friends (as one friend so bluntly puts it, “who are you calling old?”), students and family I hadn’t been in contact with in years. I was dismayed though when I later discovered that these distant relatives were not, in fact, reaching out to me, but my sister had recommended them as friends.. Nonetheless, this did help in rekindling connections with the past. As for the students, I decided to accept students that had graduated but did not accept those currently in school. I wanted to respect their personal space as I hope they would mine. I continued to explore the various features of the website such as browsing the news feed, sending messages and chating “live” with others, sometimes too many to keep up with! As it turns out, the friends that I “befriended” were not of the type to give vivid accounts of their daily routines but actually highlighted events that were of significance to them and in turn, of interest to me. I was thoroughly enjoying keeping up to date with family and friends, particularly with my daughter who is currently going to college and is living away from home.
Two other social networking sites that I have “briefly” explored, are those of Shelfari and Teacher Librarian Ning. I had heard of each of these sites in conversations with a librarian and fellow classmates. After registering for accounts and setting up profile pages, I familiarized myself with their features.
Illustrated as “the premier social network for people who love books”, Shelfari provides a space where you can display books that you are currently reading, have read or are planning on reading. You can then rate these books and write a review, all of which may be shared and viewed by friends. Although reading in the past few months has only consisted of readings for my courses, I did display a few of them. And in order to be able to see my friend’s book display, I requested to be her friend as well. On several occasions, I have sent her messages, asking for her opinion and looking for book recommendations. I explored the “groups” feature where you may create groups, or what I see as “book clubs”, to talk about books. The “Great Books for Teachers” group looks appealing.
Upon first hearing the word “ning”, I wasn’t quite sure what people were describing. I soon discovered through Wikipedia though that it is an”online platform for people to create their own social networks”. Kist (2010) adds, " (. . .) and then those who want to join the Ning are able to communicate with the other people who have joined that Ning" (p. 34). And I guess that’s just what Joyce Valenza, a library information specialist, did. It seems she created the Teacher Librarian Ning, “a community for teacher librarians and other educators”. Many an hour could be spent exploring this site as it has a wealth of information. And with over 5 000 members, it seems that others see this as a valuable site for finding and sharing information as well. Just as an example, through the “Forum” feature, librarians were asking for suggestions in areas such as book recommendations and how best to arrange setting up a library. Seeing we are currently automating our catalogue system and are changing our colour-coding system to that of the Dewey Decimal, I was intrigued with the ideas for activities in introducing the system... and can’t wait to share the Dewey Decimal Rap video with the students...
How can I put social networking into practice?
I think it’s safe to say that even when this course is finished, I will continue to use Facebook for personal use, as a means to stay connected with family and friends. This will include sharing some photos that are of “significance” in our lives. As a Grade 5/6 teacher, however, I couldn’t justify interacting with my students as they are supposed to be 13 years of age or older to have an account. Even within the school walls, we would be unable to use Facebook as it has been blocked by the school board. It seems this is fairly prevalent as “some district officials remain skeptical that such social networking tools really benefit education, worried that they just open the door to Internet – security problems and the possibility of cyber bullying” (Editorial Projects in Education, 2010, p. 18).
It is my hope, however, that by starting small with a social networking site such as Shelfari, that we may gradually “open our doors” to the world beyond our classrooms and socialize with others that have similar interests and passions. Initially, I would set up a group account for the students in my classroom where they may chat about the books that they are reading. We could even invite other schools in our board to see if they would be interested in joining us as well. I would also like to investigate the new social networking site launched by Scholastic in October which is entitled “You Are What You Read”. In a special version dedicated to children 12 years and under, they first list the five books that had the biggest impact on their lives. They may then interact with readers around the world and get book recommendations. A clasroom guide and lesson plans for teachers and librarians is also available. Perhaps this is even something we could persue during visits to the library. These present excellent opportunities for students to take part in discussions, sharing their opinions, critiquing their books and developing good communication skills. The one thing, however, that I would be sure to discuss with students prior to any type of participation/interaction online is to think about both their presence online and their audience. As Kist (2010) suggests, “how do we think about audience in the age of Web 2.0?” (p. 38). “ (. . .) what happens during the writing process when the writing we’re doing is for an unknown and potentially worldwide audience and a rowdy audience at that capable of making random comments about what we write?” (p. 39). To help students consider these and other related questions, he proposes playing a “snowball activity” where students receive comments about their writing, anonomously. (p. 38).
Likewise, I would like to use this opportunity to develop myself professionally. By taking more of a prominent role in interacting with others through social networking sites such as Shelfari and Teacher Librarian Ning, (i.e. becoming a group member of "Elementary School Librarians" and participating in the "Virtual Cafe" events), I will be broadening my horizons and expanding my personal learning network. What was initially challenging in finding ways to seek advice and to collaborate with others, has now become much more attainable with the advent of these social networking sites at our finger tips.
References
Editorial Projects in Education. (2010, June). Social networking goes to school, Digital Directions. Retrieved online from http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2010/06/16/03networking.h03.htmlKist, W. (2010). The socially networked classroom: Teaching in the new media age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
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