I use Facebook almost daily for personal communication, and it's convenience. When thinking about using it professionally, or to communicate with students however, I begin to get nervous. I have heard too many bad stories about teachers having problems with what students see on, post on, or say they saw on teachers' Facebooks. Reading the Sardine blog's post about how teachers can harness the potential of social media gave me pause. Use Facebook to communicate with students? Isn't that dangerous somehow? From the graphics, it would seem that YouTube is a form of social media too. I have never seen a teacher have qualms about showing an educational video via YouTube in class or encouraging students to upload video project assignments to the site for presenting. It really is all about how the technology is used. The blog listed several good ideas for using social media effectively in the classroom: using a blog as a class calendar and assignment forum, posting activity ideas or project ideas to a group Pinterest board to communicate with parents or teacher teams, etc. There are sites like Moodle that serve some of these same purposes, but they cannot also be used for social communication. I would certainly rather be the teacher who allows her students to use the technology that they are already familiar with and enjoy for classroom learning, than one who says, "Okay now this is our learning social media site." I want to learn more about some of the ideas mentioned in the blog such as Flashcards and WeRead, to learn how to become even more effective and more relevant in the classroom.
