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