Thing #19

The social network sites like Ning, Gather, and TeacherPop seem to provide professional people with a place on the internet to share and collaborate as part of an online community. The discussions and dialogue exchanges enable professionals to engage in thought provoking ideas concerning important issues. Unlike Facebook, TeacherPop’s membership appears to be composed of educators and not just anyone seeking to join. This style of communication does have some purpose and can be beneficial. The benefit should be limited in scope and not be used to socialize outside of the school. The idea of joining social network sites and actually participating in one of the sites I explored during the lesson is not very appealing. I do not necessarily support the mainstream philosophy that just because it’s technology that teacher’s must get on board with it. As a private individual, I feel that one must be careful with how they use the internet. That means that one must consider carefully the consequences of joining social sites that are designed to be social, but used as a means to monitor its activities. I will never share information with one of my students on a social site, nor will I continue to be a member of them once I begin my teaching career. I will limit my social communications to those few Facebook friends that I have in order to closely monitor what information is out their about me. For me, the idea of socializing via the internet is not what teaching is. Instead, it is the concept of enabling my students to learn and grow through engaging lessons, and well delivered strategies. This is where educators should place their focus.