Journal 1

Social Networking for the K-12 Set by Jim Klein

This article describes how the Saugus Union School District developed and implemented social networking technologies for teachers and students. Goals for the new program included providing an easy to use, technology-rich environment for the creation and sharing of content; establishing technology-driven workgroups for communication with staff and community; providing opportunities to discuss social, ethical, and legal issues and the creation of effective learning environments. Only SUSD employees and students can create content on the community sites. Individual members can choose to share content with the general public, site members only, small groups, or just themselves. Comments are monitored by various access controls. Student comments are reviewed and approved before being posted. SUSD has over 350 users on the Teacher Community site. The site is used for newsletters, announcements, file sharing, lesson planning, lesson presentation sharing, videos, pod casting and creating communities of interest. The Student Community site has over 450 students online. Students post pod casts and creative writing projects, participate in group projects, share curriculum knowledge and review lessons. One of the key benefits of SUSD’s social networking is improved communication and a sense of community. Teachers can keep parents and students informed and collaborate with each other, and students can share work with one another, parents and teachers, in a safe environment.

QUESTION 1
How can social networking benefit me as a teacher?
Social networking can provide an easy way for me to communicate with parents and students. I could use a classroom blog to deliver updates, homework assignments and curriculum content.

QUESTION 2
What would be some potential drawbacks to using social networking in my class?
Although students would have a safe environment to post comments to me or one another, I think it would be very time consuming to review and approve student posts, and to reply to each comment posted by parents and students. Also, I would still be generating paper bulletins/updates for families that did not have regular computer access at home.