Laurie Hnatiuk's List: Social Networking

• future of the school library as a relevant and viable institution is largely  dependent on us and how quickly we respond to change.
• formats, technologies, learning needs, and our schools are evolving
• for the first time in history we are moving from a time of information scarcity  to one of information abundance
• becoming an expert in the new rules
• It’s about teaching how to search and evaluate information coming from wikis,  blogs, Twitter, and whatever comes next. It’s about understanding and using  tags, about sharing and harnessing the power of a wide variety of information  feeds. It’s about teaching how to aggregate RSS feeds, to gather useful widgets,  and to create personal information portals.

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• ,  where key educational interests and  accomplishments are posted and shared. 
• has flipped our roles.  It used to be that parents and teachers taught  children.  Now, the reverse is true and the quicker we can grasp this  concept, the better equipped we will all be to live in the 21st century. 
• One talented teacher cooked up an entire 20th century China project on  Facebook. 
• Many schools have pushed teachers to have their own websites, with syllabi, unit  samples and topical web links.  But the missing piece with this type of  design is the lack of interaction for the user
• understanding of the way multitasking challenges learning can even help students  practice intentional learning and thus improve the performance of their working  memory." 
• One productive way to do this is to develop a giant smart grid to disseminate  information and facilitate communication through student developed Facebook  pages,
• Common Sense Media schools  program can serve as a starting point.  Founded five years ago as a  non-partisan organization committed to media safety for kids and families
• CSM offers practical resources and lesson ideas for educators and conducts  workshops, presentations, and focus groups with students and teachers for  schools.  They even have a family media agreement, but have not yet crafted  a more encompassing agreement to connect home and school

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• Mad Magazine to Facebook: what have we learned?
• "butwecannotcontrolitandmightlosecontrolofitandwhoknowswherethesekidsmaygowithit."
• his students lived in a world full of the latest cutting-edge technologies and  applications: from iPhones, iPods, and PDAs to cell phones and laptops; from  avatars in Second Life to real friends in MySpace and Facebook. Before entering  the hall, students were socially networking around the world, conducting  immediate personal research on issues they were curious about (Googling anything  from movie times to how to load a new graphic card on their motherboard).
• 1 acknowledge the need for everything from filters, differentiated levels of  software/site admission, strong parental involvement, and appropriate safeguards  in place to protect all students, which includes evaluation of the physical  layout of computer labs.

• Boil it down and my entire argument for giving  students access to all technologies is based on three beliefs:

   

  1. Knowing that students have accessand it is not  going away-we should make that access work for everyone's benefit. We must allow  access to technologies and their applications at school, because, whether at  school or elsewhere, students will find access to current technologies and play/  experiment/innovate with the full range of applications. We will never prevent  students from using current technologies in ways they find emotionally,  socially, or yes, even educationally beneficial;

   

  2. Knowing the benefits, we should do all we can to  promote our students' abilities to use the existing (and future) technologies  and applications to help reach their fullest potentials; and

   

  3. Knowing the dangers, we should teach safe  protocols and 'net etiquette to our students so they do not inadvertently make  the errors that place them at jeopardy socially, financially, emotionally, and  even physically.

   

  Technology is here to stay. And guess what? There is  only going to be more and more of it coming faster and faster. Historically, we  know we will eventually lose any battle against its full acceptance and  incorporation into our classrooms, so why not get on board now and become a  facilitator rather than an opponent?
• it is also a lazy way of avoiding the inevitable and of irresponsibly dodging a  very real public safety issue.
• The problem is that while we argue these social, ethical, political, and legal  points, technology marches on, and we fall further and further behind our  students.
• we are not discussing a new song here. The tune is the same, only the lyrics  have changed
• Mad Magazine. Wow! If you dared to take a copy to school, everyone was warned of  dire consequences.
• there is the calculator
• We all knew that the first handheld, cheap calculators were created by mad  scientists out to destroy the math abilities and reasoning skills of every  schoolaged child
• empty hallway on his campus. He told us it was not really just a hallway, but  actually a Time Warp
• Education had time-warped back to circa 1950s-1960s- 970s formats of standup,  teacher-led lectures, accompanied by worksheets and textbooks.
• our alternative should be to teach responsible, safe use of the technologies and  their applications as they apply to gaining new knowledge, exploring new ideas,  playing with concepts, and building the future.
• FEAR OF THE UNFAMILIAR
• Our superintendent had the district adopt a requirement that all staff must  demonstrate competencies in eight areas of computer/ technology use.
• requires ALL staff members to either pass a competency test or take a three-hour  course in the eight designated competencies
• minimum expectation for any staff member should be for them to at least know how  to refer a new application or web site to a higher authority for further  evaluation before allowing students to use/access it.
• ALL IS NOT EQUAL
• Students may not have equal access to a private cell phone or laptop, but with  wifi, one COW, three labs, and computers in every classroom, 1 can assure them  equal access. 1 believe all schools should make equal access a priority

  • What is a COW?
  Add Sticky Note
• LOSS OF CONTROL
• the teacher had students use the keypads on their cell phones to figure out  relationships between the numbers and letters.
• a 7th grade class could plan and implement a field trip all on their own using  the Internet and their cell phones to make the arrangements? Not only do I  believe it, 1 believe it could be done at much lower grade levels as well.

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