Nebraska Change Agent
' I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could tolerated anything so primitive.' John W Gardner
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Benefits of Social Networking
The first time I heard of Leadership Day was last year. I had only just started blogging and felt like there was not much I could contribute. When I saw Scott McLeod’s post on it this year I felt like I might have something to add to the conversation. I spent hours thinking of something brilliant to say, but there were no flashes of inspiration. Then it hit me! Administrators need to know more about the benefits of social networking and how it can be used to help their teachers stay on top of the latest developments and trends in education.
I started developing my personal learning network (PLN) in April 2008. I joined the NECC Ning and immediately started making connections with people who were attending the National Educational Educating Computing Conference in San Antonio. I also joined Twitter and that is when I really saw my PLN grow. It was not long before I was making true connections with people around the world. There are a few people in my PLN that I work so closely with that I feel like we are coworkers.
In April I decided to test the power of my favorite social networking site, Twitter. I wanted to see if it was possible for the few hundred people in my network to work together to do something good for someone. I decided to ask for donations to help send a teacher to NECC. I asked Richard Byrne to be to the “newbie” and he gladly agreed. Within two weeks we met the $1500 goal. My plan had worked!
Stop and think for a minute about the implications that this has on learning. I am a teacher in rural western Nebraska who was able to make a difference because of my personal learning network. I was able to help send a teacher from Maine to a technology conference in Washington DC. People who knock social networking need to hear this story.
Can you imagine a student at your school harnessing the power of Twitter to change the world? I would like to ask you to start looking into the positive aspect of social networking. Teachers and students who are networked have so many more learning opportunities each day. No less than 99% of my professional learning takes place on Twitter. Before you totally write off what social networking can do in your schools for your teachers and students, please take some time to explore what it means to those of us who rely on it every day.
8 Responses to “Benefits of Social Networking”
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Recent Visitors
July 11th, 2009 at 10:49 p
Beth,
Great point. What I actually thought of while reading your post was the way the world pulled together on Twitter to broadcast the events of the Iranian election. Students should learn the power of social networking as a way to advocate and mobilize people.
Thanks for the perspective!
Mary Beth
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July 12th, 2009 at 6:29 p
Great story of passion and community for learning and learners!
Regards
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July 12th, 2009 at 8:57 p
I continue to be amazed at the way in which you simultaneously grew your PLN and at the same time, grew a community of caring tech geeks to send Richard Byrne (http://www.freetech4teachers.com/) to ISTE. This is a great example of building a community of caring PLN members! Well done!
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July 12th, 2009 at 9:31 p
I agree. I am a principal in middle school and have always embraced technology as tool to improve our instructional practices. We need innovative teachers to consider moving their skills over to the administrative side. The last administrative conference I attended shed light on this issue. While I sat at my table, the one of only two admins with laptops up and running. I also imagine that I was in youngest 1/3 of the participants. Good teachers make good admins. Twitter has broadened my PLN exponentially! Thanks for the challenge.
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July 12th, 2009 at 10:22 p
I agree that social networking really has becoming more important than any conference. Conferences still are important, and they definitely can benefit from social networking. I think it’s great seeing administrators in those networks and hope it keeps up.
Great post Beth!
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July 12th, 2009 at 10:25 p
Your work with the ISTE Newbie project is inspiring! I’m hoping more and more people will see the leadership potential in social networking and the real life connections that take place because of it. Thank you for being an inspiration!
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July 12th, 2009 at 12:30 p
So how do we explain to folks who don’t get “Twitter” that it has value for our students?
The biggest fear of social networking, even microblogging, still seems to hinge on so many teachers and administrators needing to feel “in control” of the network when it comes to student use.
Or am I wrong?
I think we need to make this learning more visible for administrators so they can buy into the value. We need to show them the possibilities and explain the rationale and write up the results.
Kevin
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July 12th, 2009 at 7:53 p
I think it is important to have some control over the social networking if you are making it a required part of a class. I know Gaggle and 21Classes (blogging platforms) have some great teacher control features (I know there are others…those are two that I’ve used). Nings have some notification features as well, but I don’t know the extent of “student” accounts. I would encourage using Gaggle because it offers you email, blog and discussion boards, with teachers being able to set up their own security levels.
As far as administrators go, they need to be engaged in it, not just exposed to it. They can easily block it out and play solitaire on their Blackberry if they aren’t interested. They have to be engaged if you want them to truly by in.
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