Next Generation Teaching

This week we got the chance to be a part of a webinar in class. This webinar talked about how to incorporate social networking into teaching strategies. The presenter, Chris O'Neal looked at big social networks like myspace and facebook and talked about how students today are so interested in this type of computer use. He talked about how student like to use these social networks to post their works, like stories, poetry, and other writings. This way peers can read and critique what they have created and get a opinion from someone other than a teacher. I think that bringing this concept into the classroom would be a smart way to get students more interested in putting effort into school work. They will show not only their teachers but their peers what they have written, which could motivate students to try their best, and also they will be able to see others ideas which could help get their creative juices flowing. One concern that was talked about was that students would use the tool inappropriately by writing material not sutable for the classroom or for by posting negitive/hurtful comments on the page. I thought about these concerns and I think that if students are given an oppurtunity to do an activity like social networking, I think students may see it as an important and mature way of interacting and learning. Also if this idea of posting works on the internet to recieve feedback is as exciting and popular to students as it is claimed, inappropriate writing should'nt be a problem. Not only that but it is easy to monitor a wiki. If there is a problem the educator can take care of it.

A couple facts that stuck in my head from this webinar was the idea about how people under age thirty were primarily using the internet for their news and science. They said 44% said they used the net, where 3% said the newspaper. I thought about the comment that O'Neal mentioned about how when we were in grade school we were taught how to read a paper and how to find articles in the paper. We are going to have to teach skills to students today by taking them on the net and teaching them how to search properly for what they need. Also another comment that stuck out to me was that the computer used to be used as a reward for students that got done with their work early, where now the computer should be one of the main tools to use for learning.

One idea I thought would be a cool for sharing on a social network could be music compositions. You could have a site with the recordings of students compositons and a player so they would be able to be heard by other students. I think students would enjoy doing something like that.


I really enjoyed this webinar and thought that the ideas given to us were quality. These ideas can give any teacher an edge to help their students enjoy and stay interested in learning.

To Blog or Not to Blog, That is the Question...

The subject matter today is blogging. Whats so great about being able to write your thoughts, experiences, and discoveries and share them with the rest of the world? Its a way that you can express yourself and not feel self conscious or worried about who and what people are thinking. It's a way to find people that you have commonalities with, and its a way to be able to track people or subject matters you are that interested in knowing about. Blogging is a really fun idea if you know people that are into it. In reality though, I don't know a lot of people that blog regularly or even at all. That's the one problem that I have with it. I'm sure there are millions of people blogging but I just don't know very many of them. I guess that doesn't mean their blogs aren't interesting. I used to think that blogging was mostly just talking about what you did that day or whats going on in your life, but exploring a little bit on Dr. Z's blog and others, I see that isn't necessarily the case. I think by exploring what is out there anyone could find blogs that would be beneficial or entertaining to them.

I was thinking about how it could be neat for families that are far apart and don't communicate often to be able to have blogs to keep each other informed about happenings in their lives. Also I think it could be cool to use for education purposes, like a way of discussing text or lectures. or even summarizing what had been done in class that day.

There are endless possibilities blogging could be used for, I think that there are ideas for uses that aren't thought yet that could revolutionize blogging. Hopefully we will find out soon.