4.3 Reflection: Social & Professional Networks

FB or Facebook is my connection to my past and my present. I live in a small beach community and many of my friends from high school are still around. We have a very strong connection via facebook including organizing multi-year events such as all-comer track meets, alumni events around homecoming, and keeping up with activities that are going on. We share updates on family, health and the events that shape life as you grow up. For me, it's like slipping into a really comfortable pair of sweat pants after a long day -- I get to catch up on people who made me who I am today. It's my check-in on the world and my morning wake-up. Since I deal so much with technology, and recently moved to a new school site, facebook helps me to stay a bit more connected.

I use the internet to find new lesson plans, media to help reinforce concepts and academics to help my students "get" the material. I am pretty good at finding things that I need, however, there are days that I have to allow myself to just surf. The internet, and all the connectivity, can easily distract you and I can often find myself totally engrossed five or six degrees separated from what I was originally looking for. I know this about myself, so I give myself permission to just surf and veg out at least once a week while being on the internet.

I know that students also do the same, however, I think students don't necessarily know how to find the items that they are looking for effectively. I don't think students will go deeper to investigate multiple sources. They tend to just STOP when they get one or two hits and don't necessarily persist to find more than one perspective. Now that teachers have started training students about the credibility of sources, it has started to get better. Would students respond that the internet helps them with their learning? I think so. The main difference is that I use the internet to help me search and confirm or revise my thinking on a matter, whereas students may only use that they find as a quick snapshot without necessarily going into enough depth.

To help students develop a learning network online, I would introduce them to reader applications, like google reader and search/topic alerts. This is one way that students can have items of interest delivered automatically from many sources. All they would have to do is to go to the reader on a regular basis to see what has been posted by people they are interested in reading about or sources that they have found to be interesting. Also, developing tweet profiles separate from their personal sites. Getting a linked in account -- many of our students are required to create them for themselves as part of a career class. I would encourage them to find sites, blogs, etc. that feature content that they are interested in. Want to learn more about robotics? Look up a few blogs, websites and follow them on a regular basis with a news aggregator like google reader, etc. Find twitter hashtags that you again, have information that you are interested in following. Pinterest is new as well and there will always be something.