Week 11 Blogs

This week under the reflection category on the class website, their were a lot of questions asked about Social Networking tools. Most of these questions had to do with communication with your students' parents, your students themselves and your colleagues. Most of the Social Networking tools that we have discussed have been facebook, myspace, and blogs. It seems that all of these tools would be helpful in communication, however they should be used with caution.
The first area is use with your students. First off, I believe that these Social Networking tools are tools that students, particularly secondary education students, visit frequently. My younger sisters are constantly checking their facebook account, which in some ways annoys me at home, but it seems to be really imperative for the survival of their Social Life. This fact makes it seem effective for you to be able to ensure that students receive a message. The problem is that students can deny that they received a message to prohibit them from turning something in on time, or being prepared. Another area of concern is classroom gossip. I can't tell you how many times I have heard my sisters tell me some type of gossip they have learned about on facebook. As much as you try to filter something, you have no way of monitoring what is said by or of students.
These tools seem highly effective as means for communicating with parents who have these accounts, however it seems to me that parents are reluctant to join some of these social networking sites because they believe that they are too old for them. Most of them seem like sites for teenagers to keep up with their friends. Another hesitation I have with using these sites with your parents is that a lot of parents won't know enough about technology, nor have a need to learn about technology, and would prefer other forms of communication. It seems that it would be important for teachers to accomodate their parents as they use different forms of communication. E-mail would seem to be a great communication tool among parents.
I am not a huge fan of facebook and myspace if you haven't noticed from this blog. If you need to get in contact with somebody, why not e-mail them. It also seems that some of these social networks require you to be in contact with certain people. How could you deny somebody when you are added as a friend? There are some people that I don't really care to know what is going on in their life, and don't want them to know about mine. I don't like feeling an obligation of having to respond to meaningless wall posts. I would rather just e-mail people. If they are somebody you really want or need to communicate with, you would have their e-mail address. Plus e-mail can be a private vehicle for communication. I have been in a situation where somebody lost their job because of something that was posted on a social networking tool, and I just don't feel that they are private enough, but I am typically a very private person. Because of some of these things, I would prefer to use e-mail with my colleagues, rather than social networking tools.