Join the Party!

Who doesn't love a good party? Social networking allows us to party all night and every day! (And if you can name the song those lyrics came from, you're old!)

As I delved into this week's topic of social networking, one of the questions that occurred to me is why have people responded so enthusiastically to online social networking? It's like a drug. People, young and old, have overwhelmingly flocked to social networking sites of all types, for personal and professional purposes. The answer? People love to party!

Not a lie, and with no explanation for why, I was reminded of my university psychology classes and Maslow's Hierarchy. I must admit, it was a vague recollection, and I had to refresh my memory. According to Wikipedia, "Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs, or small social connections...." If we think of the popularity of social networking in light of the need to belong, it all makes sense. We can belong to so much more and on a much greater scale by using the social networking tools available to us online.

Reflection on Social Networking

Two sites are often noted as being the most popular, Facebook and MySpace. Personally, I don't know anyone who has a MySpace account, but almost everyone I know has a Facebook page. Facebook is party central in this neck of the woods!

The primary purpose for me to sign up was to connect with people I hadn't seen or heard from in ages. And that's pretty much why I stay on. I keep in touch with former students, old friends, people I don't talk to that often. In this way, I guess I'm the wallflower! I don't go out of my way to meet new people, find people, or start a conversation.

My daughter, my students, and many of my friends are the life of the Facebook party. They update their status regularly (and have it linked to their cell phones as well), they play games, do quizzes, post on each other's walls (carrying on conversations), load favourite videos, keep photo albums, add various applications and much more. Accessing Facebook is something they do multiple times in a day and sometimes use it for a considerable length of time during the day. I access Facebook one or twice a month! They aren't using it to talk to people they have lost touch with. They're using it to talk to people they want to keep in touch with. People they see and hang out with in their daily lives. This is a way for them to keep hanging out even when they can't physically be in the same place.

Signing up for Facebook is easy. You start with a profile. You answer all those important questions like whether you are male or female, what your relationship status is, your religious and policitcal views, you know the stuff. You may or may not post a picture. Personally, I went without one for so long, my daughter finally got fed up and put a picture on for me! And then you start adding friends and answering friend requests. You can spend hours on the program. At first I did. I posted status updates, I did quizzes, but mostly I became a "Peeping Tracy!" It was a little voyeuristic. I would go onto people's pages and look at their pictures, see what was on their walls, look at their status, look at videos they had posted. I was basically snooping! Facebook is a good place to satisfy those Alice Kravitz cravings! (Can you name that 70s t.v. show reference?)

But I have to be honest, I just didn't keep up to it. With the exception of a response to a rare message, I really stopped using it. Yup, I was a big time party pooper! Well, with this class it was time to rejoin the party! I decided I had better go on and clean up my Facebook account. I got rid of a bunch of old notices. I changed some of my privacy settings and the information I had on my profile. I did find that whenever I went on, I became addicted and ended up losing a whole bunch of time. I did a lot of quizzes. I really like the movie quizzes, and I like challenging my friends.

During the course of my course, I decided to expand my Facebook involvement. I did not sign up for Farmville though. I know so many people who are farming, but I am just not responsible enough for that! Plus, I don't get the draw! I looked around for some groups though. I did this because I am the co-chair for my daughter's after-grad committee, and in our discussion about how we are going to involve the grads and keep people informed, we decided to develop a Facebook page. We have about half the grads registered so far, and we anticipate more after our next big meeting. At any rate, I decided that maybe I should look for some groups that had a purpose and that I could use and enjoy. No Farmville though! I did end up joining two different library groups on Facebook. One of the groups is made up primarily of library media specialists from the United States and Canada and the other is smaller but has members from around the world including India and Australia.

Nings were new to me. Ning isn't everyday vocabulary yet, like Facebook, but interestingly enough, a Ning is a lot like Facebook. A Ning is a place for individuals to go and create a social network. According to the article 7 Things You Should Know About Ning, a Ning can be easily created, it does not require technological know-how, it can be public or private and it can be personalized to look and act as its creator thinks it should. It functions very much like Facebook or MySpace. Nings can be "used for activities ranging from news, current events, and professional development to entertainment, dating, and support groups." Nings can be local, regional, national or international. Nings can be formal or informal. Nings can be "anyNing" you want them to be!

I initially joined three of them. (I know, I am the original party animal!) One is the K-12 Online Conference Ning , one is the Teacher-Librarian Ning and the other is the Canadian 21st Century Teacher-Librarians Ning. It is easy to join them, but as is the case with many social networks, membership needs to be confirmed. These Nings are gathering places for sharing and discussion, although they are formed around a topic - either the conference or teacher-librarianship, rather than just general membership. Members can upload videos, share photos, discuss ideas, share information, keep track of events, respond to questions, post blogs and more.

To be honest, I like the Nings better than Facebook. I guess because I do not socialize the way my daughter does and stay connected all the time with my friends. I'm quite happy to chat on the phone (which my daughter never does) or see my friends at our dinner club, girls' lunch or splurge. My online use is primarily academic or professional. I felt the Nings I joined had more to offer (although I was mostly a "peeping Tracy" again and spent most of my time reading conversations as opposed to participating in them). Maybe it's just that the lines between my personal and professional life are a little blurry. I really enjoy hanging out and talking shop, so I guess social networking about work is really relaxing and enjoyable for me.

Social Networking and Personal Learning

Well, because I was really such a inactive Facebook member, I did learn a number of things about Facebook! First, Facebook has a chat feature. I was on my page cleaning some things up and one of my former students messaged me. We had a nice little chat. Since he contacted me, two more people started a chat with me while I was on. That was pretty amazing. I didn't start a chat with anyone though. Another thing I did, which I guess it was kind of foolish of me not to have done sooner, but I went through my profile and took off a lot of information. I realized after some of the earlier discussions in this class that a person could maybe do some damage with the information I did have or use what I had on there to get what they needed and maybe steal my identity. I took off my employment information, my year of birth and some other things I thought should go. I also learned you could control who could see what. I did not actually change that as I don't think there's anything on my account that I care whether someone sees or doesn't see. Perhaps that would be different if I used it more, but I did find out how I could change things if I wanted to. Pretty easy as you just click on the drop down menu on the line you are working on.

One very important thing I did learn about Facebook is that it has a Scrabble application. And you can play Scrabble on Facebook. I joined two Facebook Scrabble groups. I love playing Scrabble. I'm a fanatic as you may remember if you've read any of my previous posts!

As I noted earlier, there is a blurry line between my professional and private life. I guess I should expand my interests and take up exercise, get fit, maybe join some healthy lifestyle groups. Join a dance club or a scrapbooking group. I really am interested in those things. But unfortunately, my butt is firmly planted on my sofa with my laptop in front of me. In the dictionary, under sedentary, it shows a picture of me on my couch with my laptop in front of me, my phone, my remote and a diet coke! Anyway, my point is that if I sit here on my computer, as I do every evening, I may do work, course work, play Scrabble, read blogs, check out the Nings, but it is all quite enjoyable and entertaining to me. So learning about Nings is as much a personal thing as it is a professional thing.

I did actually create a Ning, just for fun. I wanted to see how difficult it would be to do it. Turns out, like so much on the web, it's really easy. I named my Ning Breathing Books. There's not actually anything on it right now, but I actually do plan to develop this Ning after this class is over. I love books, and I love to talk about books.

Social Networking and Teaching and Learning

Want to get kids interested in learning? Want to engage them? Throw a party! What kid doesn't love a good party? Social Networking provides an opportunity for students to connect, cooperate and collaborate. According to the 7 Things You Should Know About Ning, "By creating social networks around academic topics, or even about specific projects for a course, an instructor can facilitate a strong sense of community among the students, encouraging personal interactions that can lead to the creation of new knowledge and collective intelligence." As well, creating a Ning is easy, and the article goes on to point out that students can "create their own social networks and learn how to cultivate and sustain a community of users that might resemble professional contacts and relationships."

In his blog post "The Added Value of Networking," Will Richardson talks about the fact that kids are already heavily invested in social networking and they are already using it to learn, but nobody is teaching them how to do it well. He references an article from the Harvard Graduate School of Education magazine Ed entitled "Thanks for the Add, Now Help Me with my Homework" and the fact that with respect to social networking, kids are "forming networks with people they meet every day as well as people they have barely met. If we can't understand what kids are doing and integrate these tools into a classroom, what kind of message are we sending them? I think we'll see an even bigger disconnect than already exists." Richardson goes on to say that "The world is changing because of social web technologies. Our kids are using them. No one is teaching them how to use them to their full learning potential, and ultimately, as teachers and learners, that's our responsibility."

And, who is going to throw this social networking party? Who is going to get the teachers out from behind their desks and onto the dance floor? Who is going to show the kids that you spell "cool" L-I-B-R-A-R-I-A-N? That's right, me (and my colleagues, of course)! According to a recent article "School Librarians Lead the Social Networking Pack Among Educators" we are the most positive and most daring when it comes to using social networking in schools. And by the very nature of the teacher-librarian's job, I think it's critical we take this leadership role and help our teachers and our administrators understand how and why social networking needs to be integrated into our classrooms. As the article notes, "Educators...feel overwhelmed by technology...[they] understand the need to address and incorporate it into teaching and learrning." And I feel this is the leadership role I can play in my school. I can help teachers to understand the technology and its importance, and I can help them to integrate it.

In an article by Fran Smith entitled "How to Use Social Networking Technology for Learning," she interviews Chris Lehmann, principal of Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy, who suggests that we need to change the term "social networking" to "academic networking" and start showing kids how they can use these tools to be" effective collaborators in the world, how to interact with people around them, how to be engaged, informed twenty-first-century citizens. We need to teach kids the powerful ways netowrking can change the way they look at education, not just their social lives."

I've quoted just a smattering of what's out there for information about the value of social networking sites in education, and they all say the same thing, we need to be a part of this! So I started to think about how I could use these types of sites in my classroom or how I could help other teachers to integrate them into their classrooms.

One of the sites that Chris Lehmann recommends starting with is a social bookmarking site. In the above-noted article he quotes de-lici-ous, but it could be any other, and for me would probably be Diigo. This is a tool I will start to use with the senior students in History and Science. It's not enough to just show the site and explain how it works. In my class this week, my group was discussing learning and understanding. To show them the site and go over how it works, the students might "learn" about it, but to help them really understand, we need to use it together. Practice using it, discuss tagging, show students how to search other people's tags, and all the aspects of using the tool that make it valuable.

One of my newest "go to gals" is Danah Boyd who, in her address entitled "Living and Larning with Social Media" at the Symposium for Teaching and Learning, stated "Educators have a critical role when it comes to helping youth navigate social media. You can help them understand how to make sense of what they're seeing. We call this "media literacy" or "digital literacy" or simply learning to live in a modern society. Youth need to know more than just how to use the tools - they need to understand the structures around them." (As an aside, check out her whole speech; it's great!) So, I am not going to jump into this for the sake of using a tool. I need to learn more. I need to look at it against curriculum (as with anything) and determine how it fits best and actually enhances learning.

The Young Adult Library Services Association has created a document called "Teens and Social Networking in School and Public Libraries: A Toolkit for Librarians and Library Workers." This toolkit has some excellent ideas about how educators can use social media in the classroom. For example, creating a Facebook page as a particular historical character, and gradually filling in the profile based on what is learned, blogging on the site as the character and as others offer sources and further information, continually upgrading their profile. It would require very critical and creative thinking to become an historical character and maintain that persona.

No matter what the actual activity, it will be critical, as Danah Boyd says, to teach students the structures of the tools they're using and how these tools can be used for educational benefit.

I think if I've had an "aha" moment in this whole topic, it's this - we need to be active in the same reality our students live in and that includes social networking. If we do not integrate tools like this into our classrooms, we cannot hope to possibly engage our students. And there are so many people already doing this. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. Check out the wiki Educational Networking. It lists more networks than I could count on Facebook, Nings, Wikis and more. It's outstanding professional development to belong to good groups and get involved in the conversations. There are links to Facebook groups that discuss student engagement and higher level thinking and Nings for teachers of English and Middle School.

Another excellent Ning is The Educator's PLN: The Personal Learning Network for Educators. This Ning has tons of fabulous groups. My classmates might be interested to know that one of them is all about how to get started using Twitter in the classroom. I was so engaged with the different topics and discussions on this Ning, that I had to become a member.

Another Ning I like and am going stay involved in is the Classroom 2.0 Ning. On this Ning I found a group of people who had used Nings and Facebook with students as well as a lot of discussion about the pros and cons and how to be effective. I think it will be very valuable in helping me to develop a plan for encouraging my staff to integrate social networks.

One Ning I think I would like to get started is for the teacher-librarians in my district. Currently, we do not have support or leadership to help us continue to develop capacity. We have a number of new teacher-librarians who are feeling lost and don't know where to go. We have a number of older and more experienced teacher-librarians who are feeling the same. Perhaps a Ning as a place to discuss, question, and share would be helpful.

I could go on forever, but I think there's only one thing left to say - "Let's get this party started!"