Back to reality

We're on the home stretch - the last quarter of school. The seniors have checked out (well, not all of them, but they are getting antsy).

I have a student who has asked to follow me on Twitter and he has also started his own Ning account and asked me about it. Another student overheard us and asked him about Ning. I stepped back and listened; it was interesting hearing him explain this tool.

I'll be doing last minute touches to my project tonight to be ready for class.

Twitter

Twitter is said to be ranked third in social networking next to FaceBook and MySpace.

The following article 'Tweeting' Between Students, Faculty Gains Popularity at Princeton discusses how "microblogging" has become very popular and how it might bring faculty and students closer through the sharing of personal details of their lives. Even though this may be through an informal setting - how much sharing is too much? So much is pulled out of context in social networking comments, that one might think twice about sharing much with students.

Apple Remote?

There was a lot of discussion at our staff meeting about laptops coming to the high school. What were are concerns, hopes, and fears. One topic was the policing of what the students were doing during a lesson. How is this monitored? If the desks are not set up strategically so teachers can view the screens easy enough, how do we know if the students are taking notes, etc? These were all valid concerns. Apple Remote was mentioned, but not explained, so the high school staff is not sure how this works.

On the other hand, if parameters are set and the lesson is engaging enough to keep the students interest, then do we need to worry about "policing" what they are doing during class? I constantly walked around my classroom and I constantly am telling kids to get off YouTube, do your work, close out of that site. It's frustrating and time consuming. Sure, you can tell the student to log out (then they cannot complete their assignment), you can give them detention (I hate giving detention for this), or you can continue to "police" and hope they are completing their assignments as they sneak behind your back visiting other sites.

Ning

On Voice Thread for Educators Ning site, someone posted their concern about students who had posted comments on Voice Thread using an anonymous name (things that were not appropriate). Conversation and replies to this discussed using Ning as a class site and setting it up so that all comments were fed (RSS) to the teacher. Student would be "suspended" from using Ning, just like being suspended from school if comments were not appropriate.

I've still been wondering how to keep my Voice Thread site for kids secure and maintaining positive comments and usage. This is something I still need more research on.