Thing #18 Silver White Winters

At what point is using the word "love" to much in a blog. I probably should not say that I love Facebook, but I admit that I am a fan. I love the idea of social networking. I keep it private so when you link to it you should be able to see anything, but feel free to send a friend request. There are some things about Facebook I don't like. For instance, Timeline, when they make changes that you have no choice over. Sometimes you have to use the most popular option though if you want to be in touch with the most people. I enjoy staying in touch with Military friends and Family. I have some relationships that have grown that would never have had it not been for social networking.

I created a twitter account for this class. I don't use it very often because I cannot load it at work on my phone and I don't dare tie up the bandwidth at work. So that leaves me at night to page through everything. Not about to try that. I get a little overwhelmed with all the comes through and sometimes it is best for me not to hear everything everyone has to say.

I believe it is very important for educators to know about social networking and how it works even if they tend to not use it very much if at all. Its okay to not be comfortable with it or know how to use it expertly, but it is important to know how kids are using it. Teachers are the second (parents hopefully being the first) influence on students and have the opportunity to educate students to the correct usage of time and energy on the internet. If students don't have a lot of parental supervision with this subject I believe that teachers need to make them aware of what a student is capable of.

I know that CMCSS has a Facebook and a Twitter, I do not know about the school my child will attend though. I know that DoDEA schools has a Facebook page and the school I work at has a PTO page, but not sure about Twitters. The biggest problem with having those sites is that they have to be strictly controlled for proper language and use. They are great for putting out information for those people that use those sites but they are hard to manage when other people decide to cause drama.