Thing 18

Social networking.... We love, We hate, We cannot live without it!  Social networking has become an everyday part of life.  Almost everyone using Facebook now (even my grandparents!).  Twitter has become more popular, most especially for younger people.  Teenagers love Twitter.  Twitter allows them to quickly share their thoughts and pictures.  I have a teenage brother and he loves to tell me Facebook is only for parents and old people now.  Twitter is the new, cool thing.  Educators must understand what their students are doing in life.  This applies not only to their home life but social media.  No one wants to be that teacher who sounds out of touch with reality because you don't have any clue what Twitter is.  I have used Twitter quite a bit, although I still don't use it on a daily basis.  So, I didn't learn much about Twitter in general.  However, I did look at Twitter a little bit differently.  I never thought about using Twitter to find more out about education.  There are links to TONS of educational articles and links to websites that could be helpful.  Its really fast and easy to go through these posts which contain a lot of useful information.  I do not know if I would actually use Facebook or Twitter in the classroom.  I believe the potential for students to be off task is just too much.  Students would chat with friends or catch up on their Twitter feed more than they would do any actual work.