Social Networking should just be called living life like a normal person.

Networking can be a powerful thing, and as all things 21^st century, networking is now done through the internet. The clear kings of what is referred to as social networking are Facebook and Twitter, although for my business minded colleagues, they may cite LinkedIn. I have for sometime been a member to all these sites, plus more, although the frequency in which I use most of them varies. Most people tend to stick to a few niche sites. Overwhelming evidence would suggest educators would be wise to take a look at Facebook. I was a senior in high school when Facebook arrived on the scene, and lucky enough to have been accepted to college and granted a university email when creator Mark Zukerberg started added colleges to his small network. Today, Facebook is for everyone, having first expanded to include high schoolers, then people in general, and more recently businesses of all kinds. Facebook has meanwhile expanded its capabilities to include all sorts of applications. It would be my opinion that Facebook chat is singlehandedly responsible for taking down social giant AIM (AOL). The problem with Facebook is that it invites people to share themselves, and as all things internet, people tend to share too much.

When educators seek out ways to connect with their school communities, they are searching for a safe zone which will illuminate them in a positive light. Is ones Facebook page which includes post from their younger years, and from friends unaware of the importance of image the correct place to do so? I think no, and yes. When Facebook was first created you had to verify your account with a school email. Today, you can use any email you want. I am not going to bother looking up how many people are on facebook, because the truth is no one knows. How many fake requests have you gotten? How many friends declared they were done with the social network after losing their password or having deactivated their accounts only to come back weeks later with a completely new profile? That's the beauty of Facebook, you can start over with a fresh slate if you want. Or better yet, you can have two disguises like all public figures naturally do anyways (IN THE REAL WORLD).

During my student teaching, a friend who worked in the same school created an alternate Facebook on which students could friend. At first I thought it was an ill-conceived plan, but then after seeing the student excitement I began to think more about the idea. If I were in control of the content on my alternate page, what was there to really fear? I would build my profile stocked with the things I would already share with my students (I like to build, I love my dog, and I think learning is fun!), and perhaps a few more surprises they could find of things they might find relatable (look at me and my little brother at the MSU game). This would help establish myself as a real live person outside the confines of school. But it also would allow me to be heard even when I wasn't around. For example, I would sometimes post when we had upcoming assessments. Imagine, students typically look at their newsfeed to see what their peers are up to, now they will be faced with updates like, “don't forget about the big history test tomorrow!” Better yet, I was also able to connect with parents who also saw these updates.

Social networking might be something that is easier for me to adopt than others. Being a 24 year old, my vision of recreational computer use is rather similar to that of todays middle and high school students. Furthermore, because of my lifetime exposure to technology, I am a quick learn when it comes to using technology. In addition to using Facebook to update the classroom community on what's going on, I have also used class wikis. I have been asked several times by more experienced teachers why I bother, and how much time it takes. It seems that the most common reason people cite in avoiding technology is because it takes too much time. In truth, it becomes almost like a template. There is an order of operations to using any website. Once you establish an order, it becomes quite simple. I sometimes outline entire lessons using the internet as my platform, making it possible to post what essentially turns out to be a lesson narrative directly onto the web. I don't usually choose to make those post public, but the point is I could. Social networking can be social, it can be professional, but more importantly for myself and the generations which are currently our k-12 students, it is always second nature.

Studies say people are reading less books. They say we are no longer reading the paper (well, profit deficits are saying that). They say our creativity is lost. The truth is, young people today largely exist electronically. I probably spend at least a quarter of my day reading, it's just all by the cold blue light of my computer monitor. I'm sure there are people who would think that statistic is grotesque and sad, and in some ways maybe it is, but it is real. If we want to do a better job in reaching young people these days, then we'll have migrate to their territory. It isn't more difficult, it's just different.

BELOW are some screenshots showing my uses of social networking:

I joined MACUL space as part of CEP 810

I joined MACUL space as part of CEP 810

I was already a member of LinkedIn, but had not joined any groups until CEP 810 suggested I should. Funny enough, I received two requests for making new connections with former classmates after joining, and discovered a former HS classmate was also taking the same course and had also joined these groups.

I find twitter to be basically Facebook status updates. If Facebook would allow you to do topic searches, and had a privacy setting that allowed for famous people to have more flexibility in terms of who can post to/with them, twitter wouldn't even exists.

This is my personal Facebook, as you can see it has a lot more activity and information about me on it.

This is my student friendly facebook. I've blanked out their names for obvious reasons, but you can tell it is a little more bare bones. It does include an inside joke between students and I as my name (Schmidtenhoffer was my family name, but shortened after my family moved to the US. I told my students this during a conversation about immigrant assimilation. During the track season I coached, and students attempting to guess my middle name. Upon finding out it was James, my track name become JJ Schmidtenhoffer, and in class I was either Mr. Schmidt or Mr. Schmidtenhoffer. Another detail I'd like to highlight on here is a conversation with a former student. He messaged me indicating that he had not gone to school at the beginning of the year, and was not sure if he would. We had a long conversation through facebook chat where I told him why he should, and that I expected him to go in. Several days later I posted as my status that I wondered if he had. He responded saying he'd gone everyday since we talked. It is moments like these that make social networking particularly exciting, and our ability to connect with students that much more visible.

 

Google Calendars different than iCal, but better?

Prior to the assignment for CEP 810, I was using iCal to make a calendar to organize my obligations. I liked that iCal was really easy to edit, that that it could be exported as an entire Calendar, but I knew I had to give google calendar a shot too.

The first think I noticed that was different was that they made it really annoying to switch between colors. I think it is important to color code obligations, because of the fact that some things are clearly more important than others. By having everything color coded, one can more quickly determine which things are meant to be attended to first. To solve this dilemma, I made multiple calendars for myself. These included a calendar for personal obligations, my different courses I am taking, and even calendars for my favorite sports teams (MSU and the Detroit Lions). I wanted to embed these to my blog, but Google does not allow embedding of these calendars as a multi-overlay yet, which I did find annoying. I also do not like that it defaults to showing you a week as opposed to a months view. Overall, I am fine with it, but I do think they should make it easier to just combine all the calendars. Also, on iCal you can toggle between catagories and choose the topic (eg Personal) that you want the event to go under, thus saving you the time of toggling between categories and reassigning the colors.

ANYWAYS, picture below:

Experiences with RSS

Alright, so I has an assignment to make a RSS feed site, which I did using iGoogle. I choose iGoogle because I liked the way it looked more than googlereader, and I wanted to keep building on my google tools as opposed to moving on to another site. Below are the requirements of this post:

• Includes a screen dump of your RSS pages that:
  • Has at least 4 new feeds including at least one blog
    

• Above is my screenshot to my RSS page. I have "A Blog About History," "Anderson Cooper 360," "Michigan News," "ISTE Connects," "EduTech Today Newsletter," "CNN.com," "NPR Topics: Education," "Cross Article RSS Feed," "Weblogg-ed," "ReflectionsOnMSUEducation," "Michigan Sports," two "Freep" sponsored RSS's, and the standard weather, date & time, google latitude, and youtube gadgets included on my page.

• Describes at least one comment you have added to a blog

• After seeing an update through my CNN RSS feed about potential jobs related to increased oil drilling I decided to give it a read. I am very interested in the use of natural resource, environmental issues, and job issues. These topics also relate to my instruction as a social studies educator. The article talks about a potential of 1.5 million new jobs, but the number is based on one given by the oil industry, and also would come at the cost of lessening the regulations that are currently in place. I found one fellow reader simply noted the potential jobs as a reason to move forward with the place. I decided to comment because I wanted to make sure he realized this is a biased and theoretical number. Another commenter also added that these figures do nothing to project the long term cost/harm caused by the action.

• Describes your experience of tracking changes to these pages routinely (for example, check your RSS page on at least 3 different days and describe the differences in postings across those days)
  • I think using an RSS tracker is soon going to become a regular habit of mine. I noted that each page didn't update their page very many times a day, and that typically updates occurred as a flurry of action. I put content wise sites on my list, but also personal favorites and found using the RSS feed a pleasant way to check ALL my sites at once and pick and choose which articles I truly wanted to read. I found myself reading more intellectual pieces as opposed to sports articles or the like.

• Describes what you have learned from the contents of the new feeds you have been tracking
  • I found a new blog about History that reports about recent findings. I enjoy it because it is written in the context of today, as opposed to a textbooks framing of yesteryear. For example, there was an article about prehistoric artifacts that were found in wyoming and date up to 7,000 years ago. But the perspective is more based on the discovery, and then the research related to explaining why these artifacts should even exist in this place using historical data of weather and climate. I also read an article about parents fighting over the pledge of allegiance, which I didn't even think was an issue anymore, nor used in schools. I went on to ask my sister, girlfriend, and several other friends who are all teachers about the topic. I found that my sister (Grosse Pointe) and girlfriend (Rochester Hills) still perform the pledge at their schools. None of my other friends in the state, or out of state, did anymore though. I found I was particularly pulled towards atricles dealing with economics (too much GI money to for profits, cost of unions, cost of oil) which I found funny, because even though I am certified to teach economics (which really isn't the same...) I've never really thought of myself as a person keen on economic issues as much as social. Perhaps it is really the obsession of Americans with money forcing all the articles to revolve around it. Finally, I found a compelling if not witty article about the uncommon core in which the author is admittedly using a liberal bias.

• Describes how you might apply either the content of your RSS page, or the capabilities of your RSS page, in your own setting
  
  • I liked how the teacher used RSS feeds in “the seven things” you should know article. He basically had his own webpage, but also put his students in groups and made them make pages too. Then he had them all RSS each other. I think that you could even do it smaller scale, having people work on projects which each having their own pages linking them by RSS and thus being able to see the growth each is making. But it also works in the sense that students and different groups can get ideas from one another. As a teacher of social studies, I think having students RSS me, and also current events websites would be really exciting. That way we would all be linked no matter the location to the same current events. This would allow us to be able to view the same content at a similar location from various sites. I think RSS has a lot of possibilities!
    

CHECK OUT MY NEWEST RSS UPDATE:

Monday, October 10, 2011

Reflection on RSS after two weeks of use:

Using RSS has been an interesting experience. There are things I like about it, and things I am not as keen on. I decided after about a week to make iGoogle my homepage. I liked being able to see articles on various sites pop up instantly. I found that I visited my regular sites about just as much anyways, but educational sites much more. Honestly, a lot of that has to do with the fact that I do not regularity seek out articles on education, but rather wait until they find me. After seeing an Anderson Cooper piece on bullying in school, I shared the link with two teacher friends, Annie and Jenny. Annie decided to actually use the videoblog in her classroom. It was exciting for me because I am taking the year off and working part time at a non-teaching job and attending classes full time. It made me feel as if I am still having some influence in a classroom. 

To fully utilize having an RSS page, I think I will need to change the way I use the internet. I have a mac (which goes to sleep every time you close the screen) and I am not in the habit of ever closing my internet browsers, which means I rarely go to my homepage, because I am never getting “on the the first time.” What this means is that I only went to my RSS page when I was actively thinking about it, which is only a couple of times a day. That may sound like a lot to some, but for a person who spends multiple hours a day with their computer it is very little. If I want to fully realize the potential I will have to alter these habits.

Changing habits is tough to do, but I am definitely capable of it. Just as an example of why would be simply because I read a story called “Twitter on Snowday.” The basic of the story is that a girl woke to her father telling her she had a snowday, only to find out when looking on her twitter account there her phone that her teacher was still intending to provide a lesson for the day to his students, but through twitter. The idea was amazing to me. 1. I cannot imagine how that would even function, and 2. I can't believe the level of participation that the teacher experienced. But it is truly this story that inspires me to want to try even harder at learning how to use technology in the classroom. If someone had his classroom abuzz about history while home for a snow day. If those students can adapt to that, I can certainly start using RSS more often.

Posted by Joe Schmidt at 5:27 PM
ALSO AT:http://reflectionsonmsueducation.blogspot.com/2011/10/reflection-on-rss-after-two-weeks-of.html

What is the difference between websites and blogs?

In recent years, blogs have become increasingly popular. Seeing the popularity, some might wonder, what is the difference between a blog and a traditional website? After all, a blog is quite literally a website, so perhaps the question should be what makes a blog unique? Blogs tend to be webpages written and edited by a single person, and usually focus entirely on one topic. CNN is not a blog, as it represents the shared creation between writers, photographers, web designers, and more recently its audience. The most popular blogs these days tend to be those written about celebrities. Perez Hilton is a good example of a celebrity blogger. He write all his own articles, meaning what you see, hear, and read is entirely shaped by Perez himself. Blogs also have an intrinsically social aspect to them as well, as they have typically contained a function to allow commenting which enables broader discussion among viewers, and with their author. This feature is now being adopted by more traditional websites, such as CNN with discussion boards and even iReports (reports done by readers, not trained journalist). These changes are happening because of the success of blogs, not in spite of them. Blogs are able to convey a human voice which feels comforting to readers, which is why we cannot help but go back continuously to our favorite sites. Traditional websites have noted the popularity, and are now adapting their designs to fit this new model. The definition of blog and website are blending so much that soon they will be synonymous.