Why Schools Should Embrace Social Networking

Back in early 2011, I posted details and resources for creating a fictional Facebook wall for characters in S.E. Hinton's classic adolescent novel, The Outsiders. The post has become one of the most visited on my blog - statics as of this post indicate more than 43,000 views!

Tonight, the Outsiders/Facebook post received an interesting comment. My first impulse was to assume it was someone looking for a flame war and simply delete it, but on second thought, it was just too passionately written to dismiss. Instead, I choose to reply to it. I hope it encourages you to think about the value of social media in education and what fundamental skills we should be teaching students.  Mr. Wildern's comment and my reply are below. 

Dante Wildern,

I appreciate your vehement opposition to my post. Anytime someone shows that much passion, it deserves to be commended.

With that said, I must disagree with you. First, this project was only one assignment in a long series of activities, all of which required face-to-face interaction that included peer groupings, large-group discussions, and Socratic seminars, to name a few. By no means was a classic work of fiction demoralized by what you refer to as "psuedo-social interactions." Pedagogically speaking, the Facebook assignment was an excellent way for students to demonstrate an understanding of complex concepts such as characterization and analysis of plot elements.

Secondly, I disagree that this assignment "goes against everything I should be teaching." Look at any mission statement from any school district in America and you will find something regarding the importance of creating lifelong learners who leave school equipped with skills needed to be successful. Whether you like it or not, online social networking is how the world interacts. If schools don't embrace this, then they risk becoming irrelevant in an ever-increasing digital world.

Again, I appreciate your comment. Conversations like these are what make me proud to be a teacher. Regardless of whether I agree with your opinion or not, you are an articulate and intelligent person. Clearly, your teachers did a good job preparing you for the world of social interactions (which is exactly what this blog is).

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Making Connections with Blogging

Something strange has been going on around here lately. I noticed the other night that blog subscriptions through Feedburner have risen nearly 30% since the beginning of September, and the number of folks following the site has also been increasing in small increments. About a week ago, @timholt2007 posted a video he created that was inspired by one of my previous blog posts. Tonight, I was even greeted by four new comments to various blog posts when I logged in to the Blogger dashboard.

It's hard for me to describe how humbling it is when someone tells me that what I'm doing in my classroom and then sharing via my blog or Twitter feed has value to them. It's quite motivating, actually.

This is what blogging is all about - making connections, finding (and sharing) resources, and developing collegiality that extends far beyond the physical boundaries of geographical location. There is so much value in reading and writing blogs - it's a shame that more teachers don't take advantage.

Below is the video post created by Tim Holt. Watch it, enjoy it, then feel free to take a look around his blog too. And to everyone who wilfully listens to my ideas and tolerates my ramblings - thank you.

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My Online Footprint

My first efforts at consistent blogging were not here, but at a blog that preceded it called 100 Days with the Eee PC. I received an Asus Eee PC for my birthday in November of 2008, just before the term netbook became a household word. Since they were still a fledgling technology, I decided to try a little experiment – to only use the Eee PC as my primary computer. I figured it would be a pretty clear case study to show the potential of the tiny machine.

My experiment was a success, but it came with a residual effect – I realized the excitement (and importance) to blogging. The blog you’re reading right now is a direct result of my netbook experiment.

The 100 Days blog has sat dormant for almost a year now, and I haven’t had too much need to go back to it – until yesterday. I was looking some source code I used about this time last year to create a online quiz for my students. I couldn’t remember where I had downloaded it from, but I did remember that I had blogged about it. I Googled my old blog to see if I could find the link.

What I found instead was sobering.

On the first page of results was a message board posting that someone had started about my blog. In it, they explained who I was, the purpose of my writing, and what subject area and grade level I taught. He then went on to question the legality of something I had written about. All of this information was easily obtainable through my blog or in my Blogger profile, but it was vexing to see it written by a stranger.

I once wrote that blogging is an open journal, but this Google search made me realize how true that is. There's a valuable message to share about your online footprint - If it's online, someone will find it. If it's something even remotely questionable, someone will question it. And unlike a footprint in the sand, what is said online is never washed away by the inevitable rising tide.

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New Year's Reflection 2009

2009 marked the birth of this blog, and it’s one of my goals to continue using it into the new decade. I didn’t want to set a quantitative resolution because a good blog has a natural ebb and flow. I don’t want to post just for the sake of posting. I’d rather have quality instead of quantity. Instead, I thought it would be a good first post of 2010 if I were to choose my favorite posts from 2009. My resolution is to do the same thing next year and hopefully have an even better crop of posts to choose from.

Classroom in the Cloud’s best blog posts of 2009

• 10 Things New Teachers Need to Know
• 9 Concessions Teachers Must Make
• Confessions of a Bad Blogger
• Damming the River
• Dear Former Teachers, I Turned out Okay
• Eat Dinner with your Family!
• Grammar Enthusiasts VS. Dunkin Donuts
• There's No Place Like Home
• Things Students say (And what they Really Mean)
• My First Typecast

New Year’s resolutions are great (and I make/break them annually), but there’s another practice that I think more people should take part in – New Year’s Reflections. It’s okay that you’re four days late; take a few minutes today to think about what you did well last year and what didn’t go exactly as planned. 2010 is your chance.

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3 Reasons Why Teachers Should Blog

A blog is better than a resume


I’ve been chosen several times to sit on a hiring committee for my school. After each applicant leaves the formal interview, the informal one begins. I Google his/her name, email address, former place of employment – anything that may bring up something that will help us make the best possible decision for our students. Most times I find a password-protected Facebook account (at least they know how to stay discreet), but occasionally I find some comments on a message board, or even a blog.

These things give us a better picture of who the candidate is. The formal interview shows us that they know how to dress nicely and can (hopefully) proofread their resume, but a blog tells the whole story. You want to know a teacher’s educational philosophy? Have them write a dozen or so posts, and it will naturally emerge. The results will be more insightful than any pre-practiced interview question response.

Practice what you preach

Teachers not writing regularly is the same as a child being scolded to eat his vegetables while his mother dumps hers into the garbage disposal.

But there’s more to it than just the obligation to write.

Ideally, every student graduating from high school with have the ability to write. They learn how to write opinion pieces, compare/contrast expositions, research papers. We teach them the skills, but we don’t make them enjoy using them. They learn writing, but rarely feel writing. Shouldn’t teachers model the idea of writing for personal enjoyment rather than how to write to a rubric or complete a graphic organizer?

Reflection

Much of the teaching experience happens after the lesson. For most, it’s during the car ride home from work when we think about what went on in our classes – what went well, what flopped, what can be done better next time, how we can build on the experience. Putting these ideas into a blog makes them more substantial.

Take, for example, this blog post right now. I’m sitting here sifting through all the reasons why I enjoy keeping a blog. By doing so, I’m getting more out of the experience than if I were to just be thinking about it to myself. Meta-reflecting, I suppose. By putting it into my blog, I am responsible for it – and responsible for holding myself to whatever conclusion I arrive at.

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Using the iPod Touch to Word Process

A glimpse of Zoho on the iPod Touch

Maybe it was too much birthday cake, but last night I had a bit of a stomach ache. I called it an early night and climbed into bed to play with my new iPod Touch.

Years ago I had experimented with students writing on a Pocket PC using Pocket Word. I was hoping to find an app for my ipod that was along the lines of a pocket version of OpenOffice but as far as I can tell, that doesn't exist. Instead I turned to Zoho.com - the leading rival to Google Docs. As far as I'm concerned, the two are equal. The only reason I favor Zoho is because up until recently Google Docs was blocked for us at school.

Toying around with my iPod last night eventually turned into a blog post about the dangers of poor administrative decisions. It was a decent post, but I was more proud of the fact it was written in such an unconventional manner.

I'm proud that this post is being written the same way. Here's my quick how-to for turning the iPod Touch into a portable word processor.

Go to mobile.zoho.com. Saving a shortcut to the home screen creates a very app-like icon. Unfortunately, Google gears hasn't quite found it's way to the iPod yet, so cloud sites only work with a wireless connection. Otherwise, it functions very much as a suitable word processing app.

Notice the Zoho icon at the lower left of my home screen.

Pros

• The iPod Touch keypad allows for surprisingly speedy typing (especially when turned horizontally).

• Because Zoho is a cloud app, work started on the iPod can later be completed or edited on a laptop or desktop computer.

Cons

• Mobile Zoho is missing many of the bells and whistles that the full-scale app boasts. The one most sorely missed is probably spell check. As a Firefox user, I've grown used to a built in spell check when I type anything.

• Mobile Zoho does not support direct export to other sites. This means after I'm finished typing this post, I'll have to copy and paste it into the Blogger editor before publishing.

• Creating a new document is not a problem. Neither is adding text or saving it. There's one major glitch with using Zoho on the iPod Touch. For some reason, after the document is saved and closed, it is no longer able to be edited again on the iPod. It can still be opened and viewed, but clicking on the text field does not bring up the key lard and cursor. I sent a support request to the nice folks at Zoho - if I hear back, I'll update this post.

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Am I a Selfish Blogger?

I read a post on CopyBlogger today titled "The 3 Fatal Diseases that Kill Good Blogs." I don't know if my blog constitutes as good but I have learned a lot since I started posting to it nearly 7 months ago. I keep an eye on the guest counter so I know at least some people are visiting, and it just tickles me when one of my blog posts gets retweeted. That's why I was eager to make sure I wasn't leaving myself open to a blog-fatal infection.

The first two diseases focused on folks looking to make their blog into a profession, so that simply didn't apply to me. The third in the list made me think, however.

Here's how the post described it:

The Selfish: These bloggers just don’t see the point in networking or in spreading goodwill. They certainly don’t take the time to foster relationships that can help them reach the next level, including creating a solid relationship with their audience.

Am I guilty of being a selfish blogger? I didn't think so at first. I'm pretty active on Twitter both in tweeting my own posts, and retweeting others, but does that count as spreading goodwill? I almost always respond to comments left on my blog and I try to comment of blog posts of others that I find interesting. That counts a fostering relationships, right?

But something about the last part of the selfish blogger description left me feeling a bit guilty. I keep a list of blogs saved to my favorites, but I don't make them public. I don't have a blogroll on my blog.

I know how excited I get when I spot my blog listed on someone's site. I should give credit where credit it due to the blogs that I enjoy reading.So I've decided to add a blogroll.

Maybe I have been a little selfish.

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Is it Possible for Teachers to Have an Anonymous Online Life?

A colleague came to me this morning asking if some of our students had tried friending me on Facebook; she had three requests last night.

Earlier this year, a few giggling kids approached me to ask about something I had posted on my Twitter account. They had found it while Googling the names of their teachers.

Even this blog has been discovered by inquisitive students who spotted its title in my list of favorites.

Is the concept of online anonymity gone? Is it a myth – something people claim to have, but can’t confirm (like spotting a Sasquatch, Chupacabra, or the Loch Ness monster)? Are we experiencing the 21st century equivalent of looking up a teacher’s phone number in the white pages and pranking the daylights out of him/her?

The optimist would say that this issue can be resolved by becoming completely transparent. Share everything; show you have nothing to hide. This does have some merits, like sharing your blog with students so they can see firsthand the rewards of writing for pleasure. But all it takes is one comment, taken out of context, and there’s a problem.

But shutting everything down and denying the existence of a web footprint is just as incriminating for a teacher. If you don’t want kids to know something, it’s probably bad, right? Maybe, maybe not – but that’s how the adolescent mind works.

So how do teachers deal with a loss of online anonymity?

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Blogging Challenge

Have you ever heard of Centralia, Pennsylvania?

It's is a small coal mining town similar to many other small towns across America. The one difference is that Centralia has been on fire since 1962.

There are conflicting stories as to how this happened, but the basic idea is that a fire started in the mines beneath the town and was never extinguished. Rather than live with the dangerous sink holes and toxic gases, residents fled to safer ground. Today, Centralia is a modern day ghost town.


I see blogs like Centralia all the time - sites that were once established and thriving suddenly left derelict by their owners. Do one of these blogs belong to you? If so, here's an open challenge. Log in and post something new. Let's revive some of these abandoned blogs! If you do, post your link in the comments below!

Experts predict Centralia will continue to burn for the next 100 years or so. Let's not wait that long for you to update your blog.

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Why I Blog

I was reading MsJWeir's first post in her newly created blog, and it got me thinking about my own experiences (follow her on Twitter @msjweir).

In education, blogging is the best of all worlds. It provides a universal audience, feedback, revision, purpose – it's like the perfect writing assignment. I am always on the hunt for the latest and greatest technological something-or-other that I can use in my class, and blogs certainly fall into that category. But that's not the only reason why I keep a blog.

I think one goal of English Language Arts is to create independent readers and writers. Wouldn't it be hypocritical for me to request this of my students if I don't practice what I preach? My students don't know the address to my blog but they know it exists, and they know I try to post often.

It's the same reason I try to read my own book while my students read theirs during SSR (silent sustained reading). Teachers spend too much time telling kids that reading and writing is important, when we should be telling them it's valuable.

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Managing Social Media Overload

I remember when my college roommate first signed up for a Friendster account and we all laughed at him. I don't know if would be accurate to call him an innovator, but it was certainly a sign of things to come.

Over the past 8 years or so, I've slowly found myself getting dragged further and further into the social networking labyrinth. It started as a Livejournal account to keep in touch with out-of-town friends. Then I added a Myspace to promote my rock band. At this point, the Livejournal crew converted to Blogger, and I followed - eventually creating three blogs, all with different intended audiences. In 2006, I found the emerging startup called Twitter and joined that. I rediscovered it again in early 2009, and it has been my social tool of choice as of late. Also thrown into the mix was a Facebook account that I created last summer to check up on a tribute group that was created for my father - he was a junior/senior high band teacher who passed away quite suddenly. Many former students used Facebook to share stories. While I never developed my account, it sits silently waiting for me to get the urge to upload some pictures and start hunting down old acquaintances. Just for the sake of embellishment, I'll also mention that I have accounts on Youtube, AIM, and Skype as well. Look at me - the picture of a renaissance man.

Here's the problem. I've never been a quitter. I still try to update every one of these sites on a fairly consistent basis. There's nothing more sad than seeing someone's personal site that resembles the village of Vesuvius. Instead of deadly gases and volcanic ash, the cause of abandonment being a new hot social networking site.

The solution to this social overload is somewhat of an oxymoron. Too many sites to keep updated? Add one more to the mix! Aside from having a catchy name that takes advantage of an obscure top level domain, chi.mp promises to streamline all social media sites. It's still in private testing, but my much-awaited beta code arrived in my inbox this morning. I haven't done more that set up the basics, but it looks promising. Perhaps the best feature is that you can assign a "persona" to everything you post. That way professional friends will only see my education-oriented blog, but be spared the rambling, sometimes offensive Livejournal account.

And the best part of Chi.mp is that you get your own, free domain name. Take a look at my account - thoughtla.mp (Pretty cool, huh?) - and if you get the urge to create your own account, add me to your community.

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Confessions of a Bad Blogger

I have a confession to make – I've been going about this blog all wrong. And it took a 13-year-old student to make me realize this.

Today in my class we began reading the student-friendly version of John Grogan's Marley and Me. Anticipating an easy read with plenty of opportunity for student reactions and anecdotes, I set up a blog where my kids can share thoughts. Before reading, I took about ten minutes to go over the blog.

Despite its 2005 induction into the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of blog is surprisingly elusive. When I asked my 155+ followers on Twitter to define blog, they were surprisingly quiet (which is a word rarely used to describe the social micro blogging site). Even I couldn't nail down a quality definition that I felt truly encompasses what a good blog is capable of achieving.

So without a best answer, I turned to the kids. Before showing them the Marley Blog, I asked them to define the word. Their answers were pretty good, but one boy hit the nail on the head. I had tried to generate an elaborate definition that spoke of collaboration, reflection, insight, and analysis. He said all that in one simple statement.

“Blogging is an open journal.”

And this was the moment I realized I had been going about this blog all wrong. I originally started it a year ago at Edublogs as a place for me to feature some of the free and open source programs that I used regularly in class. Despite some of my attempts to make the posts witty or entertaining, they usually came across as informative but dull. They read more like infomercials, and that certainly is not the point of blogging.

I was not treating this blog like an open journal. When you steal your big sister's diary from her room, you read the whole thing to get a picture of her inner-most secrets. You don't care that some entries are better than others - it's the big picture that counts. I've been missing that with my blog. Instead of sharing my thoughts on day-to-day happenings, I've been carefully planning each post.

So my door is now open. Will you sneak a peak at my open journal?

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