Thing #5-Microblogging

This is an easy Thing to do this morning, as I already have all of these things set up and operational!

Facebook. Facebook is not the enemy in the classroom. Facebook is not the enemy period. Parents and teachers who are scared of Facebook and think it is some kind of cult have never tried it. See my earlier blog post. I am a 46 year old Facebook user and proud of it. Be my friend! Kim Covington Clayton, if you want to find me. "Facebooking" is now making e-mail a dinosaur. This is how our students communicate! You can set up a group for any purpose, and sending a message, document, or video, as well as sharing pictures, is EASIER than e-mailing an entire group.

I have seen the SBISD commentary about not communicating with students via Facebook and whether or not there is a policy. I have some former students (just a handful) that communicate with me via Facebook; I almost think this keeps them honest because if I see e-mails or pictures that are inappropriate I almost always mention it. Furthermore, if I know STUDENTS are watching me, I am not going to say or post anything inappropriate either!

We did have an issue at our school last year that involved Facebook. A student in a classroom illegally hacked into his own Facebook account during class--yes educators, it is called a proxy and just ask your students--they KNOW how to hack through the firewalls), but when the bell rang, left the classroom without logging out. The next class period, the student sitting at that computer placed a threatening message on the first student's Facebook page about a Columbine type shooting which was being planned at our school as a joke. The two students did not know each other. When the first student logged into his Facebook account, he saw the message, realized he had not put it there, and became scared. He immediately reported it to the school, which was the right thing to do, but it caused a panic among students and parents until it was found to be a hoax. The lesson is--not that Facebook is evil, but that students and teachers need to exercise caution, know who they are talking to, and use Facebook safely and ethically, just like anything else on the Internet.

An alternative to using Facebook in the classroom is a Ning. I used a classroom Ning for both student and parent communication last year and plan to also use it this year--I've just taken down the one from last year but my new one is http://whswolvesden.ning.com The kids call this "school Facebook". You can even set up a Parent group on this that the students can't have access to and the parents can chat and blog as well.


Twitter. Also not the enemy or scary. Follow me! kaclayton1 What I really like to follow on Twitter is weather reports, oddly. I follow my congressman. I follow ABC News.

Now, I manage to do all of this AT THE SAME TIME because I have an application that connects this blog, to Twitter, and then to Facebook. So this blog post will show up on my Facebook account and as a Tweet in just a few minutes. Even though Twitter is limited to 140 characters, the Tweet shows up as "Just blogged ths" and then gives a link to click on, so you can acutally tweet much more than 140 characters.

thing #5 down!