Social Networking and Second Life

The three articles I chose to read and summarize had to do with social networking and social software. These are important tools that can be used in the education field. There are numerous ways to use different social software in the classroom. Each of the articles reviewed describe ways to use social networking and social software in education and explains the benefits and some of the hazards of using this technology.

The first article titled, Editorial: Examining the Social Software in Teacher Education, written by Richard Ferdig discusses the different uses and types of software of social networking. Ferdig defines social software as an interaction between two or more people that allows for opportunities for feedback and communication. Then he provides several examples of social software, such as, MySpace, email, blogs, wikis, etc. He states that there are four important theories that can be used to support the use of social software. The first is the constructivist theory. Ferdig says that a student can learn at their Zone of Proximal Development through the use of social networking, by learning and interacting with their teacher, other students, or the computer. The example he gives that would be a good tool for this theory is a math website used at Drexel University. Students can receive help from other students, teachers, and parents. The second theory he suggests would support the social software usage in the classroom would be, collaborative and cooperative learning. Social software makes it more fun and can help motivate students. Ferdig uses the Writely site (http://www.writely.com) as his example. The Writely site is a word processor application that allows many people to share, view, edit, and store their work. The third theory he uses is the constructivist theory. In this theory students share their work with others, get feedback and then reflect on it. Ferdig states that blogs are good examples of ways to support this theory. The final theory he uses states that, “learning occurs through centripetal participation in the learning curriculum of the ambient community” (Lave & Wegner 1991). This means that students can be a part of a community or group and have their own place in the group. The examples that fit this were MySpace and Facebook.

The author then goes on to describe six other articles that support the use of social software in education. One explains the importance of using email. Another article says using PDAs was helpful. Video games, especially those that are social interaction games, are also great tools to use in education. Ferdig explains that in order to utilize the technology available to us we need to research it, and find ways to use it properly and also understand that we have to keep students safe at the same time.

The second article was written by Boulos, Hetherington and Wheeler. This article reviewed the uses of Second Life in the medical and health education fields. The authors introduce Second life and describe what it is and some of the major uses for it, besides social networking. It can be used to buy, sell and advertise, learn about other cultures, gain knowledge and information about different subjects and also give people a place to interact and meet other people or avatars. To communicate with other you can have chats and use instant messaging or use a microphone and talk to the person with your own voice. People also meet and get together for online conferences, classes and support groups. They discuss the and describe the medical and health education sites from Second life such as, Second Life Medical and Consumer Health libraries and Virtual Neurological Education Center (VNEC). They provide several examples of games and virtual worlds in second life that allows people to virtually learn about different topics. They state many uses for Second Life and the importance of it in education. However, the authors also state that because this virtual world is so close to reality, things can get blurry and mixed together with real life. The use of virtual worlds is becoming more and more important and they offer many positive experiences, both social and educational but these worlds need to be researched and evaluated before we can use them more regularly in the education field.

The final article I reviewed was a study conducted by The National School Boards Association. This study was comprised of three different surveys. One was given online to students from ages nine to 17 years old, another online survey was given to parents and the third was an interview over the phone of school district leaders. The article describes the way students use social networking, such as, instant messaging, sharing music, videos and photos, making web sites, and posting blogs. It then goes on to describe how most schools have strict rules about social networking sites and that many schools prohibit the use of them at all. There can be many negatives in the use of social networking sites but most of the students and parents that were interviewed said that they had not had any problems with cyber stalking, or bullying. Most of the problems they had were the same types of problems that they would have with current music or television. For example, they might have seen inappropriate pictures or heard bad language. The results from the interview with the school leaders seem to indicate that they are unsure of the value of using social networking sites. Very few school leaders seem to think that it could help students with their reading and or writing abilities. Finally the article states ways to balance and guide the use of social networking sties in schools. For example, they say to use it for staff to help them communicate and develop professionally and also find ways to use the social networking sites for educational reasons.

All three of these articles provided me with many positive ways to use social networking in teaching. The articles discussed pros and cons to social networking. There are so many uses for social networking sites, not just for educational purposes in the teaching field but also for normal everyday people who want to connect with others, find support for something they are going through or just to learn more about a certain topic that interests them. Teachers need to be careful how they use social networking technologies in their classrooms and research and learn about it prior to using it. Furthermore, it is important to teach students ways to be safe when using social networking sites.



References:

Ferdig, R. (2007). Editorial: examining social software in teacher education.
Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 15, 5-10.

Kamel Boulos, M, Hetherington L., & Wheeler, S. (2007). Second Life: an overview of
the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education. Health
Information and Libraries Journal, 24, 233-245.

The National School Boards Association (2007). Creating and connecting/research and
guidelines on online social and educational networking. Retrieved March 23,
2009, from http://www.nsba.org/SecondaryMenu/TLN/CreatingandConnecting.aspx

Experiential Learning

The experiential learning theory by C. Rogers is based on two types of learning. There is cognitive learning which is memorizing facts, vocabulary, numbers, etc. The other is experiential learning and it is based on what the leaner wants to learn and know about. It is knowledge that is applied, meaning that if you wanted to make and decorate your own cake you would learn about cake decorating. As Rogers states, the qualities of this type of learning are “personal involvement, self-initiated, evaluated by the learner, and pervasive effects on learner.” Rogers believed that all people want to learn and that learning is a natural thing that occurs with everyone. He also suggests that to assist students in learning teachers should follow the 5 steps as listed below.

1. Set a positive climate to promote learning.
2. Clarify the purpose for learning.
3. Arrange and make learning resources available.
4. Balance both emotional and intellectual learning aspects.
5. Share your feelings and views with the learners, but do not take over.

This theory can be used in internet-based instruction by allowing students to use their own thinking and interests to build on and learn from. A good example of this would be to use a class web page that would allow students to have access and communication with each other and the teacher. A Wiki page is the perfect example of how this theory could be applied. All the students are connected and can communicate to each other very easily. The instructor can post activities with choices so students can choose activities that are most interesting to them and that they can apply to their own life. This type of learning will allow the learners to grow and change throughout the course of the class. Their thoughts and ideas can be expressed and shared. Blogs can also be added in order to promote as it states above, emotional and intellectual learning.
The use of mashup technologies and podcasts would also work well with this type of learning. Mashup technologies allow students to view many different aspects of the same topic and they can search for what they think is the best example of their topic. For example, if students are researching architectural history, they can search for mashups that allow them to view and explore the different architectural buildings in history. Mashups can contain maps or pictures of different things. Podcasts are also an important technology to use in the teaching field. There are thousands of podcasts on pretty much any subject you can think of. This gives freedom to the learners and allows them to search for a specific way to learn how to do something, such as creating their own web page or even how to fold a t-shirt in three seconds. When teachers use the experiential learning theory to teach it allows students to explore and put to use the things they view, observe or make, which makes the students more willing to learn and more involved. Then the students are better able to retain the knowledge and apply it.

Reference: http://tip.psychology.org/rogers.html

Challenges of the Internet in the classroom

Pretend you are a K-12 teacher or university professor. Everyone in your class has a personal computer connected to the Internet. Describe in 300-500 words what you think will be several of the most significant challenges you will face when using the Internet in your classroom.

If I were a teacher in a school where students would have access to their own computer and internet I would be extremely excited. The technology that is available to us is amazing and I would jump at the chance to use it regularly in my classroom. However, there are some challenges that teachers have to face when using the internet in the classroom. One of the biggest problems is safety. Will the students be safe online when exploring the internet? This is a major issue for teachers as well as parents. It is definitely something that you need to address to your students before going online, even if they already know how to use the internet. One site I found that was interesting and something I would use in my own classroom is the Kidz Privacy site at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/index.html
It is a site designed to help, parents, teachers and students understand ways to safely use the internet. This site has downloads and sections for parents, teachers and students.

One of the biggest safety issues is not knowing exactly who you are chatting with or meeting in some of the online games. There are so many people online that it is hard to know to who is real and who is not. Students need to know that who they are talking to online might be who they say they are. There are a lot of good people and there are also not so good people and our students need to be taught ways to protect themselves. A perfect example of this is the Megan Meier story which I watched online at You Tube. This was a story about a girl who thought she was chatting with a boy her own age. She got close with the boy and then one day the boy said he didn’t like her anymore and that she was worthless, etc. This girl took it to heart what the “boy” told her and she was very upset and eventually took her own life. The “boy” was actually another parent in the neighborhood. Now I’m not saying that this is the norm but it can happen and so we need to teach our children to be careful who they become close with. It could be anyone. There are many dangers when surfing the web. So we should take this into consideration before we let our students online.

Group Work

I was very apprehensive about working with a group, especially in an online setting. I have had bad experiences with them in the past. However, I went into this project with an open mind and hoped it went well. I had two wonderful people in my group-Mark and Jonee. They were very helpful and I feel we all did a good job of communicating and and keeping things on time. It went very well! I would be happy to work with them anytime again!

Web 2.0

Well I found several different applications for students and teachers. One interesting application I found was Yaca Paca at http://yacapaca.com/ This site seemed like a great site for teachers and students. Teachers can post quizzes, tests and eportfolios. I also found a really cool site with educational games and books, it has Dr. Seuss (one of my favorites). The site is Kid thing at http://www.kidthing.com/ this site uses the Internet but it's not a web browser and has NO ADDS! So when my students or my son are on the computer they can't click on an add and go somewhere else. You don't know how many times I have had to take students back to a page because they went off somewhere else. I haven't had much time to play on it but it seems pretty neat. Hopefully I can try it out more this weekend and see if I can use it in my classroom. There were some more applications that I think would also be interesting to use as a teacher but I focused on 2 of them and these are the ones that interested me the most.

Podcasting thoughts

My experience making my podcast was pretty good. I had rerecord it a couple of times because I didn't have absolute silence around me. But other than that it went well. At first I thought it was going to be hard to do, but it wasn't bad at all.
As for my thoughts on using it as a teacher, I think it is a valuable tool for teachers to use. I thought of many ways I could use it, only I wanted to make something I could actually have my students use in the classroom. that is why I chose to read a story to them and have them follow along. I saw this on another podcast and thought it was a good idea. I could also use it to record their voices and have them read the stories. I think they would love that. Another way I thought about how to use pod casting would be to have students do their own news pods, they could use current events in the world and also discuss things in school and events that are coming up. I think this would be great for the older students at my building because it would make them feel more important. They would also be learning too. There are many ways to use pod casting in education. I think if the school has the ability to offer their teachers technology to use in the classroom then we should jump at it and use it as much as we can. The school I'm currently working at does not have too many opportunities for technology, at least not yet. We are currently setting up a new computer lab and library with a smart board for classes to use. I can't wait to be able to use technology more, there are so many positives that come from it. There are a few negatives, but if the teacher is on top of things and sets up guidelines for the students prior to using any type of technology then I think the positives out weigh the negatives.

First Podcast