The TWAIN blog

TechNewsWorld cites Facebook as the top social networking site. The article states that Facebook “has had 132 million unique visitors for a 153% growth rate since July 2007″. Myspace is in second place with 113 million visitors. A third site is Hi5 with 56 million unique visitors.

The visitors rate isn’t the same as the number of members. An article on CNN.com says that “MySpace had 72.8 million national users in June versus Facebook’s 37.4 million”.

Statistics for which one isn’t the issue in this post. The issue here is the article in CNN about Teacher-Student Facebook connections. The article can be read by clicking the link above or by clicking here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/08/12/studentsteachers.online/index.html

I like that this article is posted to start the conversation out of our edu-tech blogs and into the real world. Teachers are using Facebook and Myspace to connect to their students and to use the tools to provide information about their classes. Teachers are using cell phones to text students. These tools are permiating the social networks outside of school and in school. They are in use!

Are teachers misusing these tools? Sure. Some. The headline-makers. The teachers who aren’t out for the safety of their students. These teachers will use ANY tool inappropriately! The article does refer to this and redirects that the tools aren’t to blame. And I greatly appreciate that!

But it is that idea of being stuck between a rock and hard place. We are in that fine line area of using these tools while some districts are starting to block them and discourage teachers from engaging in accessing these tools.

The fact is that Facebook offers the ability to reach the students better than a district hosted website. If your students have you as a friend in Facebook, the updates from a teacher are immediately posted to the student’s Facebook site. Facebook is the most used social network site by students in middle to high school. It is the most filtered site. And yet it is the site that students use any proxy bypass to get around our filters each day. It is the most requested site by the students to get access to.

And you know what else? Students don’t need our web access to get to it. They are getting to it via their phones anyway.

So…a teacher who posts notes, information about tests, class information, etc. in Facebook is able to get that information sent directly to students via Facebook and their cell phones are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Is Facebook the new teacher web page?

How safe can we be if we aren’t even recognizing and using the power of Facebook to teach proper use of social networking?

Here’s what I want for our schools: I want our middle schools and high school to have a Facebook presence with multiple editors and administrators (site-admins can be multiple). They can post news items, pictures, and links to resources on the page. Alternatively, the administrators can view student pages and offer suggestions to them to remove suggestive pictures and information. How else can we help our students learn to use the tools than to teach them to use them appropriately?!?

I am gathering and using the Web tools to connect to Beijing and to be an active participant in the world-wide audience of the Olympic games. To me, it isn’t just about the competitive sports. It’s about these 17 days of connection between all of our countries.

An issue is the restrictions placed on athletes and participants in the Olympics by the IOC and Chinese government. There are not as many “sites” for Olympic inside information. But there are microblog techniques for sharing what is happening. Below, I am listing sites for Olympic news and resources.

Search the Twitter streams and search Twitter streams for “#080808″ for up to the moment information about the opening ceremony.

Personally, as a Facebook user the updates, images, and blog posts are micro-blogged to me through my account in FB. I suggest if you haven’t made the jump to Facebook that you do so if you want good coverage of the Olympics.

I received a note today of Michael Phelp’s gold medal with this link in Facebook: http://2008gamesbeijing.com/write-a-message-to-your-favorite-athlete-team-or-country/ - a site where you can also leave a note to your country, team, or athlete all in one place.

http://2008gamesbeijing.com - Olympics in Beijing website

http://www.usolympicteam.com/ - The official US Olympic Team website.

http://beijingvisitor.blogspot.com/ - Beijing Visitor blog.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/olympics2008/index.html - NY Times coverage of the Olympics

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/ - LA Times blog about the Olympics coverage

http://olympicsblog.dallasnews.com/ - Dallas Morning News blog about Olympics

http://www.cctvolympics.com/ - Forget the language barrier. The images are easy to navigate on this site produced with help from Adobe.com.

Commercial blogging: Sponsored by Lenovo, these are blogs by athletes - http://summergames.lenovo.com./?language=en+es+fr+de+it+ja

Others recommended by readers?

I find this concept to be very interesting, especially for our current students and the realm of future job presence. In the edu-bloggersphere, there is talk of Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind and his discussion of jobs non-existent now being ready for the next generation.

I guess since my background has been working with students in design programs and working with web and server design, I see how this idea of Conjunctured or Co-working is so beneficial to the design community. Many of these designers work from home or the local coffee shop without getting the interaction of others in an office. And they genuinely miss that interaction. They can do the watercooler discussions online but they can’t participate in instant feedback communication or sharing of ideas that an office brings.

Co-Working and Jelly in Austin are what I believe we as educators should be looking into for how future jobs can be developed. The concept is explained better in the video and I have posted about it before (I may have deleted it). But the concept is to gather a group of independent workers in an office space where they can still work on their independent projects; but they can co-work on each other’s ideas. Sharing. Networking. Collaboration. Creation.

But without a boss. Without the pressure of administrators. Without the hierarchy.

Equality.

Click here to view Co-Working Video from Austin American Statesman reporter Omar Gallaga

Just bought these tonight to read:

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham

Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham

Also bought two CDs on sale (haven’t bought CDs in a year and thought I would never again) in the bargain area for adding to my iPod for working out: Paul Oakenfold and the Chemical Brothers. Electronica Trance music for the uninitiated. Mellows me out.

Interesting link I just found as well. http://isbn.nu/ - Do a price comparison of books in categories of hardcover, paperback, and multimedia.

A few posts ago, I posted a comment about the use of Twitter at the NECC conference. I used a word “Twitterati” that may be a new one to describe the method by which some people seemed to want to be the first to post messages about recent events on the Twitter timeline. Someone asked for a deeper understanding of the term Twitterati so I thought I would post about it here. Twitterati is taking the word “Twitter” and adding the end of “paparazzi”. I think it adds an element of being relentless to getting information posted as fast as one can to a timeline of communication.

I don’t want this conversation to be pulled into the “Famous Blogger” discussion that Scott McLeod brought up in his blog. This isn’t so much about the presenters as it is about the audience. I posted about how in several sessions (and dinners), there were people in the audience (or at the table) competing to be the first to post in the UStream and Twitter networks about the goings on in the different rooms. It was a nervous and almost frenetic energy in the audience to not just listen but to actively record and be the one to post the information.

And maybe it does tie back to the idea of a class system within our group that Scott referred to in his blog. I wonder if it is the value of the information that they were anxious to post or was it the feeling of helping the Famous Blogger that made it such a race. Which was the greater motivator?

I guess the next step in working with Twitterati is figuring out the meaning behind the race to share the message.

Is the message worth interrupting the social gathering to post on a virtual social gathering?

As I asked in my previous post: What happens when we allow the social networking (on our computers and phones) overpower the social gathering?

What are the new rules or etiquette guidelines for social networking in social gatherings?

Has social networking become the new society?

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