When I think of social networking my mind immediately skipped to facebook, twitter and in an education sense Edmodo. Through exploring in this module I am pleasantly surprised at the scope of networking available for teachers.
I began using twitter midway through 2013 after attending a workshop run by George Couros (@gcouros) a twitter and education expert from Canada. I was amazed at how useful it actually is. I regularly read articles posted by other teaching professionals and connect with educators from around the world. My twitter handle is @patjmackey.
Scootle is an excellent tool, yet it is extremely under used as a resource centre. I have used it limitedly. Its use is becoming more prevalent with the emergence of the BOS syllabus builder linking directly to it. It is also linked to the CeNET work so when we sign in to use technology we are able to access the thousands of resources available on there. While I have been using it, I never contemplated it as being another professional network tool. That is until after reading through this module.
I tend to shy away from using Facebook in a professional sense. The way twitter is used in the primary classroom in my experience is for reflection on the learning that has occurred in the lesson. I believe it has more use in high school where apps such as HootSuite can be used in the classroom to facilitate discussions. The rules and regulations around age limits on twitter don't allow that. Below is an image of one way primary school students can still feel a part of the ever growing technologically connected world.
I am a relative newcomer when it comes to Linkedin. I am yet to discover its full potential although I have heard great things.
I believe as educators we hold a great responsibility to teach our students effective use of social networks for both professional and social means. Explicit teaching of privacy settings should occur and more should be done to ensure this happens. A question may be, should this become more embedded into the curriculum?
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