Social Network

A couple of years ago, when a friend announced he was being stationed in Afghanistan for a year, I opened a Facebook account. Soon, a flood of people I knew in high school wanted to be my friend (again). When other friends from college spread out around the country, it was a great place for us to post pictures and keep up with each other. While it was quite addicting at first, the traffic of people I'm interested in hearing from has slowed. I still check it about once a day as I wind down. I do post about 3-5 a week to "show off" something my kids say or announce a clever thought. I use it as a way to keep my friends laughing or smiling. However, if there is something I want to say to someone personally, I really am careful about what I post. An email or a phone call is how I like to conduct personal business.
A recent purchase of the iphone has changed how I communicate with friends. Text messaging is so much easier. It is quicker than email and I know it will be read by them and not the entire Facebook community. The phone also makes it easier to put up a Facebook post at a tball game, or after finishing a 25K race.
I never thought about the professional uses much until joining CEP 810. I have several teachers that are Facebook friends and we usually keep it social. Everyone once and a while, we share an article or link that deals with a subject we teach or, recently, changes the governor wants to make. We use it to spread information to not only other teachers, but everyone else who might be reading our posts. I know see the political advantages of Facebook.
When I joined Twitter for this class, I was stunned by the amount of content specific posts that can be found. A simple search can bring up hundreds of tweets and links. I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information about education, but now I see the value in the sharing of this information.
How can this benefit my teaching or classroom? Well, since a couple of teachers are also parents of students in my class, I get to see a side of the students and their family life I don't normally see. I am reminded during my nightly check of Facebook that it is cold and flu season. That it is baseball/soccer/lacrosse/track season. I get to see what some students did on vacation. This year when students asked if I was on Facebook, the conversation went something like this:
"Mr. Bailey, are you on Facebook?"
"You mean that thing where you post what you are doing and can play MafiaWar and give people chickens in Farmville?"
"Yeah!"
"Never heard of it!"
The class would be puzzled by my answer. The three or four students who knew I had an account played along, and only last week did someone admit that they found me on the site. (I'm usually hard to find because there are so many sites for Ben Bailey -- the Cash Cab guy -- that I get buried in the search.) I've had former students try to friend me, but I wanted to keep my private life private. Shortly before taking the class I thought about starting a profile for Mr. Bailey, where I could allow students to "see" what I want to reveal to them. It could be a place to open up a bit of my personal side, and allow me to see a bit more of their life.
I did share to students I started a Twitter account for this class and asked how many of them had accounts. A few did, but far fewer than have Facebook accounts. I think it is because there are very few students that have devices that allow them to tweet at any time. I'm sure I could easily sway my sixth-graders into opening up accounts with encouragement, but do their parents want that? I don't think it is still widely acceptable, but parents are coming around.
The social network lab had great ideas for using it in class -- to post discussions and background channel chatter -- that I hope to use soon.
Currently, social networks are part of my everyday routine. I am gaining some confidence that I will soon be able to use these in my professional life and introduce them to my student's lives in a way that shows them another benefit to these networks as I have been recently been shown through this class.