Week 1 - 5/30-6/5

Here we go!

I deactivated my Facebook account about two years ago. When I read that it was the first thing I had to do for this week, I was slightly disappointed, but what should I have expected. The class has social network right in the title, and Facebook is definitely the most prominent social network available. I despise what it does to people, as a member of the generation that quite possibly has spent over half of its life exposed in such a way. Responsible Facebook use is important, especially for educators. Privacy settings are important, and I feel that not enough education is done about this.

As far as professional development goes, I have been a Twitter user for a long time. I find that it is extremely helpful as a tool to connect people that have similar interests, especially in career readiness. I follow several leaders in the field of educational technology and work diligently to look for ways to improve my teaching and help my students achieve more. I find that Twitter not only connects me to awesome people (for example,   ) but it also keeps me integrated into my community, as many city services post tweets throughout the week. 

I have not used any social networks inside of my classroom. I would technically consider Google classroom to be somewhat of a social network albeit small and mostly used for management of content with a few classroom discussions. I have definitely told my students to write tweets for some projects, allowing them only 140 characters to get thoughts across. 

I expect to learn a lot about the benefits of these social networks. I should probably get my tin-foil hat ready though because I'm not certain about the gutting of net neutrality that looks like it is going to be taking place soon. I look forward to learning and embracing these tools.