Donna's Google Reader Subscriptions

Blogs, Blogging for Professional Development, and RSS Feeds

LEARNING ABOUT THE TOOLS

BLOGS AND BLOGGING

The term "blog" refers to a web log, which Wikipedia defines as "a website typically composed by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are in reverse-chronological order". A blog is like an online diary or journal.

There are blogs on every conceivable subject and there are many different blogging styles. Here are some as outlined in Darren Rowse's article in Problogger.

• Instructional - how to do something
• Informational - gives information on a topic, e.g. Wikipedia
• Reviews - consumer reports on customer satisfaction with various products
• Lists - Top 10 Ways to, 7 Reasons Why
• Interviews - a guest post is featured to get an expert opion on a topic
• Case Studies
• Inspirational

Setting up a blog is easy. I chose Blogger.com to begin my blog for this course because I had never blogged before and I found it easy to use. My blog has evolved over the past several months as I have learned more about Web 2.0 technology.

Finding good blogs to follow is easy using search engines like Blogsearch.google.com or through an aggregator like Google Reader. Once you find a good blog to follow, either click on the RSS link on the blog (if it has one) or copy the URL address into your aggregator.

RSS AGGREGATORS

This brings up the question: What are RSS feeds and aggregators? Wikipedia defines RSS as "Really Simple Sindication". What's simple about it is that "the content comes to you instead of you going to get it (Richardson, 2009). It is a group of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works, such as blog entries and news headlines. Blogs have an XML code or "feed" that allow readers to subscribe to the content created on the blogs. RSS feeds allow you to go to one site to access the content of a multitude of sites using a type of software called an "aggregator" or feed collector. The aggregator checks the feeds you subscribe to approximately once per hour, and collects all the new content of sites you subscribe to. Google Reader, Bloglines and Newsgator are examples of popular RSS aggregators.

I have found Google Reader relatively easy to use. I have organized my subscriptions to various feeds in folders, so I can efficiently find and read articles of interest. I mark articles with a star so I can quickly refer to them at a later time.

The value of RSS is that it allows you to read more content from more sources in less time (Richardson, 2009). Richardson talks about newspapers and magazines becoming obsolete as readers can pick and choose what they want to read from a variety of sources and in a sense create their own magazine or newspaper, or the "Daily Me", as he calls it. Information can come from blogs, newspapers, websites and search engines fed into Google Reader.

Search engines like news.google.com enable you to keep up-to-date on the latest news developments on specific topics. For example, I did an Advanced Search on "Winnipeg" and "Health" and found the latest news stories about health-related topics in Winnipeg. (Not surprisingly, there was lots on H1N1 clinics.) By copying the URL address from the results page into my subscriptions in Google Reader, I am now kept up-to-date with the latest developments on this topic. I also learned more than I needed to know about Tiger Woods' recent car accident.

Technorati is another way to search for blogs to subscribe to. Richardson sites Technorati as a “leader in indexing Weblog content”. I signed up, but wasn’t able to create the “watchlists” he mentions, as the site no longer provides this feature. The tag page is very helpful for finding blogs with content on a particular topic. By mousing over a the tag, a reader can see how many times a blog post in Technorati was tagged with it during the past month.

PERSONAL LEARNING

The experience I have had in this course with blogging will serve me well in the future as I contemplate what my first personal blog will be about. I may begin a travel blog or diary of my adventures and activities while on leave to share with family and friends. I will continue to use Google Reader as my "Daily Me" to read articles of personal interest and seek to engage in conversation with like-minded people.

Besides the two blog search engines mentioned previously, Bloggerschoiceawards.com is another one to use for finding blogs of personal interest. I used it to search for blogs on a variety of topics, including Travel, Health, Book Reviews and Cooking. Here are a few that I've subscribed to:

Canada’s Adventure Couple - This one appeals to me because I like the layout and it provides lots of good travel ideas and tips.

Feminine Fit Blog provides daily fitness, nutrition and weight loss tips for women. I have found many good articles to read here.

The New York Review of Books is one of thousands of blogs on book reviews. With my upcoming leave of absence not to far off, I'd like to find suggestions for some good books to read.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

BLOGGING AND RSS FEEDS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Blogs are yet another way to connect educators both near and far. (Richardson, 2009) suggests that school committees use them to archive minutes of meetings, continue conversations between meetings, share links to relevant information, and store documents. Teachers can use them to share best practises, lesson plans, and projects being done in class with other teachers. An aggregator such as Google Reader is an efficient way for educators to keep up with what others are doing in their classrooms and the latest trends in education and technology. Finding good educational blogs or edblogs can be done with with blog search engines or by referring to the Blogrolls of reputable educators who are using Web 2.0 technology. Here are a few edblogs I've found useful:

The Innovative Educator

This blog belongs to Lisa Nielsen, P.D. Manager of Instructional Technology with the N.Y.C. Department of Education. I like her blog because she offers practical ideas that can be put to use right away in the classroom. For example, in a recent post she writes about Watchknow.com, a video aggregator site where educators can find videos suitable for student viewing from a variety of different sources. This is a valuable site for me because I can't get YouTube at school In another post she writes about how teachers can get students using Web 2.0 tools to publish their work instead of handing in a paper copy. In her Blogroll I found another great blog called Free Technology for Teachers which is now listed in my Blogroll.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog

This blog is written by Vicki Davis, a teacher from Georgia. Her blog provides a wealth of information about Web 2.0. Her Education Blogroll is a great resource for finding other edublogs to follow. In her "Most Valuable Posts" section, there are a number of good reads. I found an interesting article she wrote on using technology to help students with learning disabilities. Her son, who has a reading and writing disability, began to use a laptop at school to type his class notes and was able to be more successful. She talks about auditory learners benefiting from tools such as Audacity and Wikis as a good tool for the visual learner. Better yet, she suggests pairing students together who have different learning styles so they complement each other.

Weblogg-ed

Will Richardson's site is one I've turned to many times during the last few months. Just about anything I want to know about Web 2.0 can be found here. By clicking the RSS Feeds button at the top of his home page, I was linked to an instruction manual for teachers on using RSS Feeds.

CLASSROOM BLOGGING AND RSS FEEDS

There are many sites available for classroom blogging. Lorrie Jackson lists and reviews several of them in her article on blogging with elementary school students. She writes about how blogging works, what students and teachers blog about, software and tools to consider and cautions about Internet safety.

I am using Blogger for my classroom blog because I am most familiar with it. Currently I am using the blog primarily to provide links to websites I want my students to use during our computer lab time. I have sent the blog address home with my students in hopes that they will access it and get additional practise in reading and math skills at home. It appears that a small number of them are in fact using it at home. I also see this blog as a way of letting parents know what we're doing at school and what they can do at home to reinforce what their children are learning at school. One parent mentioned to me at his child's learning conference that he appreciated the podcast of the dictee words because he doesn't speak French. My classroom blog is also a good way of sharing what's going on in the classroom.with our school's administrators.

My next step in classroom blogging is to get my students involved in writing. I recognize that blogs can be an effective way to help students become better writers. “Research has long shown that students write more and with greater detail with an authentic audience” (Warlick article) I have been exploring Class Blogmeister as a blogging forum for my students because it is free, easy to use and password protected. I spent some time on the site exploring classroom blogs and found Mrs. Deere's Classroom Blog, a Grade 4 class in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The teacher has had the children create avatars and write short biographies of themselves. She has given them questions to answer about what they like most about Grade 4, what's been most difficult and what they want to learn this year. She reminds them that their blog posts can be viewed by the public, so they are not to include any personal information. To reassure parents, in her introduction she tells them that everything their children write will be previewed by her before posting to the site.

Another example of a classroom blog is a novel study of Sarah Plain and Tall. The teacher has created a blog about the book asking students to comment on questions that she has posted. This would be a quick, easy, and relatively safe way to introduce kids to blogging.

Including RSS feeds in our classroom blog would be a great way to introduce aggregators like Google Reader to my students. Teaching them how to skim and scan for relevant content in an aggregator will prepare them to be "the knowledge workers of the future" (Richardson, 2009) them to choose subscriptions to topics of blogs that interest them would give them a sense of ownership of the classroom blog. They would also be more engaged in the reading and we could respond to some of the posts we read together. I spent some time searching for childrens' blogs in Google's blogsearch engine and had to sift through a lot of material to find something I could use in the classroom. Then I did a search on children's magazines to see if there were any with RSS feeds. Here are a couple by National Geographic. I like that there is very little advertising on them. .

http://kidsblogs.nationalgeographic.com/kidsnews/

http://kidsblogs.nationalgeographic.com/dogeared/

As I've mentioned in previous posts, staying safe online is always an issue when using Classroom 2.0 tools, and classroom blogs are no different. Before undertaking student blogging, parents and students need to be informed about these issues. Cybersmart is a great site from Australia for educating students and their parents about Internet safety. Manitoba also has also developed a site called Cybertip.ca.

While I am on leave, I will have more time for reflection on how to set up my classroom blog for next year. I will have the time to explore more classroom blogs and develop one for my students to use more as a Web 2.0 tool, reading as well as writing.

CONCLUSION

Blogs are a relatively good substitute for face-to-face communication and offer a way to overcome the isolation of the classroom. The caution is that blogging can be a very “directed at” or “sit and get” (Web 1.0) style of learning if responses are not made or responded to in a timely manner. It is the interaction between reader and writer that develops community on the Web and provides the opportunity to broaden our knowledge and understanding. By learning how to blog as educators, we are able to teach our students how to participate in ongoing dialogue to extend their knowledge and develop their reading and writing skills. Blogging provides a larger audience for them and motivates them to participate in the read/write Web. It enlarges the learning community beyond the classroom walls for ourselves and our students and develops an awareness of the global community at large.

REFERENCE

Richardson, W. (2009) Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful webtools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Why Let Our Students Blog Video

Twitter

Twitter

What’s all the buzz about Twitter? Twitter is about conversation; it involves “listening” by reading others’ post and contributing one’s own tweets. Messages must be succinct and to the point with 140 characters or less. These short messages are snippets of people's lives, from the mundane everyday events to those of a more significant nature. Messages can be relayed via mobile phone, the Twitter website, IM or email.

Learning About the Tool

In the Trailfires on Twitter, I found “Twitter for Beginners”, a well-written introduction to this tool. I like the author, Charlene Kingston’s analogy of Twitter as walking through a huge cocktail party and listening in on the various conversations that are going on. She provides a link to a post in her blog with a handy checklist for new Twitter users.

I listened to Mack Male’s Elluminate session on Twitter and learned all about hashtags which are labels used to categorize a tweet. For example, #ywg tells the reader that the tweet is Winnipeg related. #EDES501 has been added to tweets by people in this course so I can easily find conversation about the course in Twitter. These hashtags are defined by the users and can be pretty obscure. To find out what they mean, go to whatthehashtag.com where someone may have listed and defined it.

Finding people worth following on Twitter can be a challenge. I like the “piggyback” idea where I can see who other people are following and choose to follow them too. #Follow Friday is a hashtag attached to a user who someone wants to recommend that others follow. It’s a good way to find people worth following on Twitter. With the hashtag #haiku I found the following micropoet: http://twitter.com/Christwitery.

In David Lee King’s video “Twitter part 2 – the Fluff” he talks about the following fun things that can be done with Twitter:

TeleTwitter is an application where you can hear people’s tweets spoken (in a robotic sort of way). I imagine this would be very handy for blind people.

TweetVolume will provide a graph showing how many times a particular word is used in Twitter and compare it to others that have been typed in. This can be a way to see what the “hot” topics are.

Links to long url addresses are shortened by Twitter to enable people to make good use of their 140 characters. The site http://tinyurl.com shortens url addresses and it can be added to a browser's toolbar.

Personal Applications

Not being of the cocktail party persuasion, Twitter feels somewhat foreign to me. I’ve been reading the tweets of some of the people I was asked to follow and others I’ve found on my own. Many of them were talking about trips they were taking to present or attend seminars and there was lots of tech talk. Their lives seem so much more exciting than mine. On the CNN Twitter site, I discovered that Oprah would be announcing the upcoming end to her show the day before she in fact did. I was devastated when I read that, but it was kind of cool to be “in the know” before most people knew about it.

I felt pretty skeptical about Twitter, but I was determined to find some value in it personally and professionally. Once I could find some personal relevance to this Web 2.0 tool, it would be easier for me to get excited about using it in the classroom. I took Charlene Kingston’s suggestion and tried looking for inspirational people to follow on Twitter to see if I could find some encouragement as I plug away at assignments and report cards. Here are a few people I’ve found who provide uplifting thoughts and quotes:

• http://twitter.com/ktotheb
• http://twitter.com/SeeMiracles

(SeeMiracles is particularly relevant to me right now as I think I may need one with all of the work I have to do at the moment!)

• http://twitter.com/lifecoachtips

I’m still trying to find my voice on Twitter and people to converse with. I’m a fairly private person, so I think carefully about what I want to post on the site. In Charlene Kingston’s manual on Twitter, she outlines things that people tweet about. She says the box asking “What are you doing?” should be “What are you thinking?” That makes a lot of sense to me. I’m more interested in reading about people’s thoughts than about them doing the mundane things of day-to-day life. She suggests that tweets be about things such as life observations, interesting reads, humour and inspiration, professional news, work details, and family life. I am to write each tweet as a headline and use language to engage and hook readers. Boy, that seems like a lot of work!

In terms of defining my goal for using Twitter, it changed as I became more familiar with using the application. At first I was using it primarily for course purposes, reading and responding to people in my course and retweeting words and links I found significant. I don’t have any friends or family members who use Twitter and my fiancé thinks it’s a complete waste of time, so I'm not using it for social purposes yet. I use my cell phone very little and rarely use the text feature, so Twitter will not likely become a daily habit for me. I will check in once in a while to see what people are talking about and check out interesting links.

Professional Applications

In A Guide to Twitter in Libraries, Charlene Kingston provides several uses of Twitter for librarians: communicating at conferences and events, keeping up with developments in the field, and promoting library services. These applications are transferable to all educators. As teachers we can promote what is going on in our classrooms to parents and administrators via Twitter.

Twitter is a great way to share online resources with other educators. Some of my classmates have shared links to some useful resources, such as Lisa Vanness’ link to an article by Joyce Valenza on social networking. I did a Google search on “teachers who use Twitter” and came up with a wealth of information. On this link to "100 Tips, Apps and Resources for Teachers on Twitter" I found Alice Ayela, a teacher of modern languages living in Germany. This is when I really started to get excited about Twitter. In her tweets I immediately found some valuable resources and retweeted them to my followers. One was a link to a site called Literacy Centre.Net where there are lessons in French, Spanish and Italian for young children. Another tweet was on the "highlighting method" of marking students' work, a much more positive approach to providing feedback to students than traditional red ink marking

On 100 Tips, Apps, and Resources for Teachers on Twitter, I found the slideshow “Twenty-eight Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom”. Some of the suggestions are as follows:

• Use Twitterfall.com to do a key word search on a topic with students and choose any location in the world to see what people are saying about it.
• Create a "Tweetstory", a collaborative story written in tweets by students and followed via Twitterfall.com or with a hashtag.
• Find out where people on Twitter are and use Google Earth to mark where they are and the distance to their location.
• Conduct a survey using http://twtpoll.com and graph the results.
• Find a subject expert on Twitter who can answer the students' questions.

The micropoetry I found on Twitter might be something to use in the classroom. We could read poetry in French and English and write some of our own. It isn't a site I would let elementary students use on their own, because it's "a bit too Wild West" as Richardson says. He recommends a site called YouthTwitter.com where students and teachers can post tweets in a "permission only environment" and connect with other classrooms around the world.

As for Twitter and its use in libraries, some are using Twitterfeed to post the authors and titles of new books to their Twitter profiles (Kroski, 2008). This may also work in school libraries to keep teachers informed of new acquisitions to their collections.

Conclusion

Twitter proved to be a hard sell for me, but I gave it an honest effort and discovered its appeal. The possibilities for using Twitter both personally and professionally are seemingly endless. I have succeeded at finding its educational value and look forward to learning more from my colleagues both nearby and around the world. It's a great way to build community amongst educators and our students. As Will Richardson says, "it's that blend of the professional and the personal that makes Twitter such a cool tool on so many levels" (Richardson, 2009). My next step in this process is finding my own voice in the Twitterverse and contributing more to the ongoing conversations.

References

Kroski, Ellyssa. (2008, Jul). All a Twitter. School Library Journal. 54(7), 31-35.

Richardson, W. (2009) Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful webtools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Social Networking in Plain English

Social Networking

LEARNING ABOUT THE TOOLS

For the last few years I've been pondering where to go next in my career as a teacher. After nearly nine years of teaching French immersion at the same school, I've been feeling the itch to venture into new territory. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do next - I just knew I needed a change. One day during this past summer, a former classmate from high school contacted me on Facebook. The last time I saw this person, almost 30 years ago, I was in a similar position, trying decide which career path to pursue. It turns out that she is now working in Toronto for the federal government as a librarian. I asked her questions about her job and I was impressed with her passion about it. I began to explore my options in the area of library and information science and that's what brought me to this course at the University of Alberta. Social networking sites like Facebook can have major impacts!

Facebook is a social networking tool used to interact through networks based on criteria such as friendships, interest groups, professional and educational associations. Its value appears to be mainly recreational in nature. It offers networks based on location, so I can join groups with members living here in Winnipeg. It is a site primarily about relationships, but not strictly social. An unlimited number of photos can be uploaded to the site and it ties into Flickr, email, RSS feeds and cell phones. It’s an “always on” application.

Facebook has a strong privacy policy. On the profile page, I can choose which elements I want displayed on my “public” page. I can become friends with others on the network by mutual agreement and we can communicate via email, cell phone and instant messaging.

Classroom 2.0 Ning

This ning for educators was created by Steve Hargadon. On the main page, there is a link to a tour of Classroom 2.0 which is a webcast video done with Elluminate. Setting up Elluminate took a bit of time, but was worth the effort.

The Classroom 2.0 Live Show and Beginner Series is on Saturdays at 9am and past shows can be viewed through the archives.

There are discussion groups one can join according to interest. For example, in the “Elementary School 2.0” Group, there are ongoing discussions on issues related primarily to this age group (seeking ning and blog partners in other schools, internet policies, etc.).

Another way to find interesting discussions is to search by tag, i.e. By Tool (e.g. Blogging, Social Networking), By Subject (e.g. Foreign Languages), or By Area (e.g. elementary, Internet safety).

Student Nings

In Classroom 2.0, I read some of the discussion around student nings. Ning.com is being used by some teachers, but Moodle seems to be the ning of choice in schools because it’s a forum open to students and teachers only, making it safer for students. According to Wikipedia, Moodle is a free and open-source e-learning software program. It provides opportunities for rich interaction, has a good filtering system and is customizable.

At Commonsensemedia.org, web 2.0 tools are reviewed for parents and teachers. Moodle isn’t mentioned, but Ning is rated as appropriate for ages 14 and up. I looked on this site for nings suitable for elementary students and found Dizzywood.com. It is recommended for kids ages 5-8 as a safe, fun virtual world that promotes positive social values like working collaboratively to solve problems. This might be a good way to prepare students for social networking sites such as Facebook and nings. I’ll write more about this later.

PERSONAL APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING

I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, mainly because I don’t have time at the moment. It's a great way to keep in touch with friends, find old ones and share photos. I like that I can access groups to join such as Stitch ‘n Bitch, a group of people who get together to knit and chat. When I ‘m on leave, I may join and do some face-to-face social networking.

One aspect I don’t like about Facebook is that others can post pictures of me without my permission. For example, last year at school there were some pictures taken of me dancing at a family dance by a parent who posted them to her website. I was embarrassed to hear that they were there and angry that the parent hadn't asked for my permission. Parents shouldn't have been permitted to take pictures at all, as I’m sure many of the pictures posted were of kids in the school.

As for nings, one that I’ve discovered in my travels through the Internet is Stepchicks, a discussion forum for women like myself who have joined families already in progress. Once again, when I have the time, I would like to spend some more time on the site. Many of the issues that I face as a stepmother are not the same as those faced by my friends with their own children. It’s great to find a site where we can vent our frustrations, find some validation and share ideas with each other. It’s reassuring to know that there are others in the same boat and we understand each other.

PROFESSIONAL APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING

Privacy and trust issues are a big factor when it comes to Facebook. Kids need to be taught how to use the site in a safe and responsible way. The tool allows users to make decisions that require judgement that is often lacking in children and teens. We (parents and teachers) need to teach kids how to be socially responsible on social network sites like Facebook. They need to learn how to be polite and kind to others online, just as in real life (Fodeman, 2009). Fodeman believes that Facebook isn’t an age-appropriate or developmentally healthy place for children and younger teens. I agree that more needs to be done to protect them online in terms of laws and direct instruction.

Children need to know that NOTHING IS PRIVATE online. On Facebook, they are given a false sense of privacy and anonymity that can lead to a lack of social responsibility. Many students are posting embarrassing, humiliating, and hurtful content in both text, photos, and videos. They need to see that there can be serious consequences to those whose irresponsible online behaviour has been made public (Fodeman, 2009). According to Fodeman, students have been expelled from high schools, colleges and even lost jobs as result of their activities on Facebook. Students and their families have been sued for slander. Children and teens need to know that once they post content to a social networking site, they have lost control and ownership of that content.

Christine Greenhow at the University of Minnesota talks about the educational implications of students using social networking sites like Facebook. Using Facebook, she says, can be time-consuming and a distraction from work and school for students. The social nature of children in grades 7 and up are what makes Facebook highly motivating for them. They are essentially wired 24/7 and some have difficulty disengaging from their online social life. For some, their anxiety level rises even when they are without their cell phones for a few hours. I've seen this personally with my fiance's daughter. Many kids need to be taught time management skills and how to use Facebook in a more appropriate way, such as for a study break.

With social networking sites, children aren’t learning face-to-face social interaction skills. Fodeman points out that 16-year-olds say they would rather break up with their girlfriend/boyfriend by texting, IMing, or posting on their Facebook wall than tell them in person (or over the phone). This “moral disconnect” is evident in the numerous examples of kids who say mean and hurtful things online because they can. They are living more and more in a world without adult supervision, without boundaries and expectations for their behaviour. As Fodeman so aptly puts it, this "lack of supervision creates an anything goes wild-wild-west” scenario.

It’s a good thing that Facebook is blocked by most school divisions; however, with its addictive nature, and the fact that many kids are using it at home without adult supervision, how can teachers help students interact on the site in socially responsible and safe ways? Are there social networking websites for young children that can prepare them for sites like Facebook?

In Bauman and Tatum’s article they review popular social networking sites for young children which include Club Penguin, Webkinz and Kidzworld. Besides games and cool graphics, these sites have chats and other interactive components, such as instant messaging which allow children to meet new friends and form online relationships. These sites provide technological skills like reading online and keyboarding, but they have elements that may be misused. Developers of these sites claim that children learn valuable Internet social skills, as well as literacy and problem solving in a safe environment. Bauman and Tatum write from the perspective of school counselors and recommend that professional counselors provide classroom guidance regarding these web sites to students as early as kindergarten.

Nings (or their equivilent) could be an effective way for schools to teach kids how to be socially responsible digital citizens on all social networking sites, including Facebook. They provide students with the opportunity to work collaboratively with each other in a safer environment that is monitored by teachers. The key is finding a ning that is suitable and safe for children. A principal, Mark McCall, is an advocate for Moodle and describes the program as a course management system that was designed to help educators create effective online learning communities that are engaging to students. It operates like a ning by facilitating the use of Web 2.0 tools in a controlled and safe way in schools.

McCall provides a number of examples of how teachers are implementing Moodle in their instruction. One teacher uses it in Language Arts in a question-and-answer format to discuss the daily reading assignments. She has found that this forum has enabled her quieter students to find a voice in the classroom. It can also be used for creative writing whereby students read and respond to each other about their writing. Teachers have found that peer response can be a powerful motivator and again, even the quietest students are making themselves heard. In math, a series of Moodle lessons can be created for students to follow at their own pace. One teacher found that these lessons kept her students engaged while she worked on-on-one with students who needed extra help with concepts.

Teachers using Moodle have reported that they are spending less time on technology with students and more time on their course content. “Class time is focused on the learning objectives for that lesson instead of navigating to digital resources” (McCall).

Professional nings like Classroom 2.0 and Education.ning.com make teaching less of an isolated experience. These social networking sites enable teachers from all over the world to share ideas with each other in an efficient and effective way. They are also a cost-effective way to provide professional development to educators. At Classroom 2.0 for example, I can access Elluminate sessions on a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools and interact with professionals in the field. How cool is that?!

REFERENCES

Bauman, Sheri & Tatum, Tanisha. Web Sites for Young Children: Gateway to Online Social Networking? Professional School Counselling. Alexandria: Oct 2009. Vol. 13, Iss. 1; pg. 1, 10 pgs

Fodeman, D., et. al., The Impact of Facebook On Our Students. Teacher Librarian v. 36 no. 5 (June 2009) p. 36-40

McCall, Mark. It’s OK to Moodle at School. Principal Leadership. (Middle Level ed.). Reston: Jan 2009. Vol. 9, Iss. 5; pg. 62, 2 pgs