I have had a facebook account for a number of years now, and have basically used it to keep in touch with family and friends. I do like it's ability to create groups that are exclusive to only certain people, but I still would hesitate to use this in elementary schools. It is just too public, and like Aaron had mentioned, there are too many other distractions for students if they are trying to accomplish any type of educational purpose on there!
I do find Facebook a great way to communicate and share with others, and often find someone has posted a link to a good laugh. Someone share this today, so I thought I would pass this one on, and share a laugh with others as well! Tim Hawkins is one of my favourite comedians! (The song starts around 1:10)
remind 101My daughter, in grade 9, came home one day and said that she had to give her teacher her cell phone number so that she could receive text messages from the teacher. At first I thought, wow, that's ambitious of the teacher to individually text each of her students! When my daughter received her first text, I could tell it was a "mass-send-out" type of format. So then I was curious...how did she do it? I then found out at the Tuesday night hangout that this was possible through the use of remind101. I think that is a really neat idea! The ability to send out a simple text for a reminder of an upcoming quiz, or a reminder to hand in some homework is a great way to communicate with students. I wasn't sure how this would work in elementary school, as not all students have cell phones, but then I figured that many parents do! This could be useful for reminding parents about upcoming field trips, or any other special events that need a quick little reminder. I know that as a parent, I would appreciate it!!
* I had a parent teacher interview tonight with the teacher that uses remind101, and she took the time to show me how it works. I was impressed by the privacy of it - as she doesn't even know the students' phone numbers. It reminded me of twitter in that she can only use up to 140 characters. She also told me that the principal of the school asked her to present what she uses to the rest of the staff, and some of the others have started to use it as well. I think it's a great use of another social networking tool!
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| flickr photo credit to kobiz7 |
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It seems that is the appeal of Twitter for students, the ability to keep information short and simple. Apparently that is their social media tool of choice over Facebook now, although they all do have FB accounts too.
ReplyDeleteI like the Remind101. I could see some very useful applications for that. I mass email my basketball team to remind them of upcoming practices, etc, but most of them rarely check email and are ALWAYS on their phones!
When I was discussing Facebook in my post, I didn't even think about the distractions student's would face in using it properly for school, but that's so true. It really just isn't educationally viable as a site. I'd be much too nervous for a variety of reasons to use it in my classroom
ReplyDeleteHi Niki, I like the brevity of Twitter too. I save the good links to diigo and can check them out when I need them. I check twitter on the ipad which allows you to quickly swipe through a long list and grab on to the ones that look interesting. The remind 101 is cool, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you got your first SPAM comment! You can delete those in your dashboard, then you don't have to worry about the spammers.
ReplyDeleteAs to your post, this was quite good, with lots of interesting reflection and recommendation. I think remind101 is definitely a tool worth implementing for certain needs like Lesley described with the basketball team and your daughter's teacher reminding about field trips, etc.
I also agree with your comments that the brevity of twitter and these other tools allow us to share, but not take up a whole pile of time! You can browse more easily and you can forward, favourite and share anything you think your network would appreciate!