Social networks go beyond the commonly known MySpace and Facebook. Social networks include blogs, podcasts, tagging, and wikis. Each of these formats allows people to connect, collaborate, and form virtual spaces. These formats provide a unique opportunity to connect to students, staff, and parents.
Students are engaged in reading and writing when working with social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. Creating a profile, posting comments, and performing searches all require reading and writing skills. In the environment of MySpace and Facebook I question the educational value. From my point of view, posts are often brief and poorly organized, so grammatically I don’t think that I could recommend these social networks for educational purposes.
MySpace or Facebook would be a perfect format to promote upcoming events, advertise services, or preview new selections in the media center. Students could also ask the media specialist questions or make request. I believe this format could change the way students perceive the media center. Instead of the media center being housed within four walls down the hall, the media center could come alive and be accessible 24 hours a day. The primary concern would be monitoring the site and assuring appropriate comments.
The other formats of social networks include blogs, podcasts, tagging, and wikis. Each of these formats could be setup to post, review, and update books reviews, group projects, or special topics. These formats cater more to a structured format and would better meet my concerns with grammar. These sites would also have to be monitored to assure appropriate content.
Many OPACs are already embracing this technology. Auto-Graphics, Fish4Info, Follett’s Destiny, SirsiDynix’s Enterprise, and Mandarin’s OPAC are designed or are being designed to support community/social networking capabilities.
The bottom line is that we all prefer to have 100% control. To implement social networks, media specialists must give up some control. The information that appears on these sites will come from multiple sources with little to no initial filtering. This puts a greater burden and responsibility on the media specialist to monitor and manage these sites. I believe that if it is an option… it is an option that can yield great rewards.
Something you mentioned several times in your post is the amount of monitoring that would be required for management of these tools. I agree that this could be a huge responsibility for the media specialist. In my middle school media center, our OPAC allows students to write reviews about books that they read and publish them for all users to view. Along those lines, I have implemented a Sweet Reads campaign in which students are rewarded with a free candy bar when they complete an approved review with at least 10 strong sentences. I set aside time each week to read all the reviews and edit for major/obvious grammatical errors. Then, I choose whether or not to publish them so others can see them. If there’s a big problem I talk with the student about what needs to be corrected or improved. Some weeks this can take quite a while, depending on the response for that week. All that being said, I can only imagine the time it might take to monitor and edit other types of posts related to social networking sites. We really will have to be willing to give up some control – out of necessity.
ReplyDeleteI definitely like the idea you talked about regarding the media center being accessible 24 hours a day. Having a Facebook page for the media center could definitely give us another platform to broadcast our resources and program to students and parents in an arena in which they are already involved.
I, too, think the media center should be available 24/7. Giving students, families and faculty a way to communicate with each other seems a very positive thing. All too often, the media specialist at my school is unavailable when I am, so I am sure that others have the same experience. Often, classroom teachers are so busy with their own work, they don't know what is going on at other grade levels and in the library. Social networking could connect them on their own time. I just finished the 4th grade science fair. It would have been nice to share those with the school community as a whole instead of with just those when visited the library during those few weeks.
ReplyDeleteI love the Sweet Reads idea that Leigh-Ann uses. Having a purpose for writing is excellent. It also gives students a positive outlet and a place to be recognized. We have a lot of intense readers at my elementary school. I would be facinated to get their insight into what they read.
I think that young students would enjoy being able to rate books. Likewise, special ed students would be able to do this as well. Allowing some students to record feedback via a podcast would be awesome. It seems we are missing the opportunity to fully engage the community by not adding this dimension to our schools.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with your concerns that students or even strangers might make inappropriate comments on a social networking site. Last year my daughter's second grade teacher wanted the students to learn how to use blogs so she had the students complete writing assignments using a blog site. Parents, friends, and family were encouraged to read the blogs and write responses. Students were required to respond to 3 blogs of classmates. This assignment is very to similiar to our current Tech in Media assignment. However, the teacher used a secure blog site that required her to approve all posts/comments before they appeared on the site. I think this was an excellent yet safe way to introduce young students to blogging. Plus my daughter enjoyed finishing her writing assignments because she couldn't wait to see it posted on the internet. Social networking can be a great way to motivate students to learn...teachers just need to create a plan to ensure the safety of the students.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I did not realize that Destiny was being designed to allow for social networking. I will definately have to look into that option.
Blogs, podcasts and wikis can certainly be great social networking tools, as you mentioned. I was really surprised at the ALA/AASL poll that said 41% of schools were using podcasts and that social networking was “widely accepted” in public and private schools. I don’t feel that it is widely accepted yet in the schools where I have been, but I do see it more in middle and high schools vs. elementary schools, which is where I am most of the time. Of course, elementary schools use the tools less because they don’t have the same skill and maturity level as the older students. In elementary schools, social networking tools can be used to assist parents and teachers more so than students.
ReplyDeleteLeigh-Ann, I love your idea of reading and correcting the book reviews before posting them. That is a wonderful idea to keep the students involved while at the same time ensuring appropriate content. It is much easier to edit the content before it gets out there vs. remove it after you have been notified that someone wrote/saw something inappropriate.
I really like how the first thing you stated was how social networking goes beyond Facebook and Twitter because when you hear the term, that's exactly where your mind goes. There are so many other options that are so much more education friendly. Using one of those sites for media center events and advertising is a great idea because it does give students access 24/7.
ReplyDeleteLike you mention, utilizing social networking sites would take a lot of monitoring, and a media specialist would have to be very dedicated to the cause to make it work for a school. He or she would have to be up to the big undertaking that it would be.