social networking

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, seven of us--Chris Sloan, Gail Desler, Fred Mindlin, Monika Hardy, Valerie Burton, Scott Shelhardt and Paul Allison--share our ideas, concerns, hopes, dreams, plans and strategies for moving our teaching away from prescribed learning toward a social change that puts students and their passions at the center of work together.

We find ourselves pondering larger pedagogical questions, discussing issues involved in working together, and brainstorming on nitty-gritty issues about how we might take advantage of the resources we have. Many of these questions will inform our conversations in future shows:

• How do we use the connections young people already have--through tools like cell phones and social networks--to extend their learning?
• How do we get to the brilliance within each young person by moving beyond external incentives like grades and badges?
• What's the difference between teaching with/through games and "gamifying" the curriculum?
• How can we build online cultures using sites like Youth Voices where young children, middle school students, older adolescents, and even young adults can work together in an online one-room school house?
• How can we find the hardware and software we need to enable our students to work together?

And finally, we'd love to know what guests you would like us to invite and what topics you would like us to discuss on future shows of Teachers Teaching Teachers as Monika Hardy, Paul Allison and Chris Sloan have evolved into regular hosts on the show. 

EdTechWeekly #166

May 30, 2010

Facebook, Privacy, and Social Networking

Dave and John are joined by Alvin Trusty and his 18-year-old daughter Kara Trusty to discuss Facebooks' newly revamped privacy settings, the expectations of privacy when posting things online, and best practices for managing your online identity. We also talked about how schools approach social networking, and whether they're adequately preparing students to make intelligent decisions regarding their own online privacy and identities.

Chat log below

Do you work with schools globally? Or want to?

The teachers whose students use Youth Voices -- and meet each week on this webcast -- often talk about “taking it global.” And this is a key value advocated by Jeff Lebow.

The idea for this webcast came when a teacher new to our work together contacted us saying that she was thinking of having her students get involved with both Youth Voices and Taking it Global (TIG). This teacher, Melissa Lynn Pomerantz, a 10 grade English teacher from St. Louis joined us on the show. 

To learn more about TIGed we invited:

• Katherine Walraven; http://profiles.tigweb.org/kagawa - TIG’s Education Program Manager,
  
  We also invited a teacher and a tech integrator who use TIGed:
   
• Mali Bickley; http://profiles.tigweb.org/mbickley
• Suzie Vesper; http://profiles.tigweb.org/suzievesper

Listen to this podcast if you would also like to learn more about Taking It Global. Perhaps like us, you will want to learn how we can broaden our -- and our students -- horizons beyond these United States.

Click Read more to see a transcript of a chat that was happening during the webcast.

Vanessa Van Petten was the guest of this episode of Parents as Partners.

Vanessa's mission is "to improve parent-teen relationships by providing them with new perspectives, stories and neutral places to communicate." She believes "this will help families instill values and build strong relationships that promote healthy attitudes and lifestyle behaviors in this generation of young adults". Vanessa strives to provide positive role models for young people.

Vanessa shares widely through her website www.onteenstoday.com Her work includes her writing – in books, in her blog and others' and in magazines. She mentors teens and connects them with other mentors outside her home base in Los Angeles. She is an accomplished speaker, both in person and online. And all this from a woman still in her early 20's.

Vanessa's latest book is The Dirt E-Secrets of an Internet Kid. Once again she has written for parents describing kids' internet lives from their perspectives. On the show she talked about how to get parents online for the first time and described kid's Internet lives form their perspective.

Watch her video.

Chat Log

Listen to a lively conversation about how to use Shelfari-- or how to get a similar site built -- to create a social networking site for students to share their book logs, reviews, and recommendations with each other.

Susan Ettenheim and Paul Allison (and Lee Baber in the chat room) welcomed: