1. EDU 626 Integrating Educational Technology
Spring 2012
Social Networking

2. 2
What is social networking?
• In 2008, 58% Had No Clue
• report from Synovate . . . showing
that 58% of adults worldwide don’t
know ―what social networking is.‖
• The report polled only users 18-65 in age, leaving
out the teenagers that make up much of the
current audience for social networks – especially
the world’s two largest – Facebook and MySpace.
• What is Social Networking? 58% Still Have No
Clue September 3rd, 2008 | by Adam Ostrow

3. 3
By the end of 2010, more people
knew!
• Harris Poll:
• Of 2,331 adults surveyed online between
December 6 and 13, 2010 by Harris
Interactive
• a majority of U.S. adults are using social
media (65%), and a similar number say they
have received a positive benefit from its use
• The Pros, Cons and Learning Curve of Social
Media
January 18, 2011

4. 4
What about in 2012?
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-networking-email-voip-study_b20025

5. Let the “Plain English” guys explain! 5
A short introduction to the concepts behind
social networking websites. Shared on
YouTube, dotSUB (translations) and
TeacherTube.

6. 6
What Is Social Networking?
• social networking and a social network
• Social networking sites provide efficient ways for
individuals (and individual businesses) to find and
connect with friends and colleagues, to establish new
relationships and deepen them, and to introduce
friends and colleagues to each other. Many social
networking sites also offer platforms for discussion
of topics that a community or network finds
mutually interesting or beneficial.
• In the most concise terms, a social network is a
group of like-minded individuals connected by a
common interest. Liz Strauss
wrote this at
7:02 am
January
28, 2009

7. 7
What are social networking services?
•
• Social networking services can be
broadly defined as Internet- or
mobile-device-based social spaces
designed to facilitate
communication, collaboration and content
sharing
across networks of contacts.
• Social networking services typically support
the public display of networks, although
they may offer privacy restrictions or
facilitate closed communities.
• Download booklet PDF 3.72mb

8. 8
Types of social networking services
• Profile-based social networking services
• Profile-based services are primarily
organised around members’ profile pages –
pages that mainly consist of information
about an individual member, including the
person’s picture and details of
interests, likes and dislikes. Bebo, Facebook
and MySpace are all good examples of
profile-based services.

9. 9
Types of social networking services
• Content-based social networking services
• In these services, the user’s profile remains
an important way of organising
connections, but plays a secondary role
to the posting of content.
• Photo-sharing site Flickr is an example of
this type of service, one in which groups
and comments are based around pictures.
• Shelfari is one of the current
crop of book-focused sites, with the
member’s ―bookshelf‖ being a
focal point of each member’s profile.

10. 10
Types of social networking services
• White-label social networking services
• Most social networking services offer some
group-building functionality, which allows
users to form mini-communities within
sites.
• Platforms such as PeopleAggregator
[apparently no longer available as a web
app, though it can be downloaded] and
Ning, which launched in 2004 [but is no
longer free, except as sponsored networks
for educators], offer members a different
model. These sites offer members the
opportunity to create and join communities.

11. 11
Types of social networking services
• Multi-user virtual environments
• Sites such as Second Life and World
of Warcraft – online virtual
environments – allow users to
interact with each other’s avatars.
(An avatar is a virtual
representation of the site member.)
Although the users have
profile cards, their functional profiles
are the characters they customise or
build and control. Friends lists are
usually private and not publicly
shared or displayed.

12. 12
Types of social networking services
• Mobile social networking services
• Many social networking sites, for example
MySpace and Twitter, offer mobile phone
versions of their services, allowing members
to interact with their friends via their
phones.
• Micro-blogging/presence updates
• Micro-blogging services such as Twitter
and Jaiku [now shut down after Google
acquired it] allow you to publish short (140
characters, including spaces) messages
publicly or within contact groups.

13. 13

14. 14
Another type
• What are Social Bookmarking Sites?
• Social bookmarking sites are websites that
people use to save, categorize, share and
search bookmarks, i.e., links and
2010 descriptive data, that refer to
resources, such as web pages and other Larry Brauner
types of web media.
• There are a variety reasons for employing
social bookmarking sites, such as saving
links, sharing links with others, conducting
research and generating traffic.
• See also Brauner’s 10 Tips for Using Social
Bookmarking Sites Effectively

15. 15
Some social bookmarking sites Top 15 Most Popular Social
Bookmarking Websites
April 2012
tagfoot is no more
Transition from Delicious to Diigo ~ Instruction & FAQ
Clipmarks is shutting down immediately.

16. Facebook and friending students
• Online student-teacher friendships can be
tricky
• Teachers such as Turner believe sites like
MySpace help them connect with their
students about homework, tutoring and
other school matters. But others fear the
social-networking sites are breeding
inappropriate relationships between
teachers and students.
• By Mallory Simon CNN
• updated 10:00 a.m. EDT, Wed August 13, 2008

17. Should teachers be fired for using
Facebook, etc. for their own personal use?
• Should Teachers
Be Disciplined For Online Lives?
• April 10, 2012
• Several teachers have been disciplined, and
even fired, for their online activities. A
Philadelphia teacher was suspended after
posting that students acted like ―rude,
disengaged, lazy whiners.‖ And a Georgia
teacher was forced to resign over a
Facebook photo that showed her drinking
alcohol.

18. Reasons to be familiar with Facebook
1. It is where many kids live. Malls and parks
may be too dangerous for them to venture
alone also, depending on where you live and
where they may go.
• Would you stay away from malls and parks
because bad things may happen there?
2. If you are a parent, you need to be
knowledgeable. By friending your own
offspring, and possible
nieces, nephews, grandchildren, etc,. you
can be aware of this important part of their
lives
• Dr. Mary Ann Bell on LM_NET

19. More reasons Read also:
Facebook
Fracas
3. How can you teach kids to be safe and By Kathy
smart if you are not up to speed on what Ishizuka --
really matters to them regarding their School
online use? Studies show that kids whose Library
Journal, 4/1
parents are online WITH them are much
/2009
safer users than those who just stay away.
4. Fear based instruction does not work for
online safety than it does for sex ed or
driving or any other topic.
5. Read Nancy Willard’s works on this
topic.
• Dr. Mary Ann Bell on LM_NET (listserv for school
librarians)

20. Facebook’s own suggested solutions?
• As an educator, how can I maintain a
professional presence on the site separate from
my personal profile?
• Facebook offers several options that will
allow you to do this:
• Create a friend list specifically for your
students. This will allow you to control which
parts of your profile are visible to your
students, keep track of the list’s activity
separately, and send bulk messages — like
homework assignments and invites — to the
group all at once.
• See next slide for more!

21. Other ways to maintain a professional
presence on Facebook
• Create a page — Ms. Smith’s 9th Grade Science
Class, for example. Pages are great for
broadcasting information to people on Facebook.
Pages are free, you can control them with your
personal profile, and they keep your profile
separate from your students. Anyone who ―likes‖
your page will automatically receive updates.
• Create a group where you and your students can
connect, share, and collaborate — American
Literature 101 Discussions, for example — or a
group where educators in your department can
collaborate on lesson plans and share ideas.
• Privacy » As an educator, how can I maintain a professional
presence on the site separate from my personal profile?

22. Facebook: Why create a page?
• Previously called Facebook fan pages
• Why is a Page a better solution than a
personal account for artists, businesses, or
brands?
• Personal accounts are optimized for
individuals, not artists, businesses, or
brands. Facebook Pages allow
artists, businesses, and brands to
showcase their work and interact with
fans. These pages come pre-installed with
custom functionality designed for each
category.
• Facebook Pages: Promoting your Page and Page
Insights » Why is a Page a better solution than a

23. Some local Facebook pages
Notice: Pages will be publicly viewable, so people
searching for a particular artist or company on the
World Wide Web will find the Page’s Facebook
presence and be able to view that Page’s photo and
basic information. To communicate with the owners
of the pages, you must be logged in to
Facebook, though!

24. Some Public Library Facebook Pages

25. Educational uses for Facebook?
• Best Practices for Educators Using Facebook
• a presentation from Classroom 2.0 Live . . . about best
practices for educators using facebook
• Driving Engagement and Belonging with Facebook
• Edumorphology Posted on February 7, 2008
• Best Practices For Using Facebook For
Educational Use
• ―How do I get my administration and IT department to
unblock Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube?‖ I gave
some suggestions on how to do just that in this article.
• Creating A Facebook Page For Your School
• Using Facebook Groups
• Monitoring Facebook Pages
• FERPA And Student Privacy
• Posted by Thomas J. West on February 1, 2011 at 6:58 AM

26. A secure social network
•
• Saywire provides a unique and engaging
online learning platform in which people
can create private, secure communities to
collaborate and communicate with one
another. Each Saywire community provides
its members with a wide set of tools to
quickly and easily build their own
autonomous communities or ―Spaces‖ as we
call them, within the confines of their
organization's parent community.
• Learn more.

27. Another social network for education
•
• Edmodo is a free and secure social learning
network for teachers, students and schools.
Edmodo provides classrooms a safe and easy way
to connect and collaborate, offering a real-time
platform to exchange ideas, share content, and
access homework, grades and school notices.
• Accessible online and from any mobile device via
free smart phone applications, Edmodo has grown
from a teacher tool into a district-wide resource as
word of the free online service spreads through
schools around the world.

28. A site for school bands
•

29. The Facebook killer?
• Google +
More comparison here
Google Plus vs. Facebook: 6 Things Google+ Has That Facebook Doesn’t
The Huffington Post | Bianca Bosker First Posted: 7/15/11

31. Reactions to the debate
• danah boyd in her blog apophenia
• In their current incarnation, social network sites
(SNSs) like Facebook and MySpace should not be
integrated directly into the classroom. That said, they
provide youth with a valuable networked public space
to gather with their peers. Depending on the role of
school in their lives, youth leverage these structures for
educational purposes - asking questions about
homework, sharing links and resources, and even in
some cases asking their teachers for information
outside of the classroom. SNSs do not make
youth engage educationally; they allow
educationally-motivated youth with a structure
to engage educationally.
• The Economist Debate on Social ―Networking‖
January 15th, 2008

32. A respected education blogger
• Will Richardson:
• Social Networks (No) vs. Social Tools
(Yes) in Schools
• Often in my presentations I ask how many folks
are teaching MySpace or Facebook in their
schools. Not teaching with MySpace, but
teaching the literacies of networking through the
lens of a SNS. Rarely do more than a few hands
go up. I wonder what would happen if we
contextualized our approach not in the fears that
our kids will get themselves in trouble by using
these sites but, instead, in the spirit of
encouraging them to experience the socialization
that danah speaks of.

33. That debate was in 2008
• Have things changed in 3 years?
• Social networking sites and our lives
Pew Internet Report Jun 16, 2011 by Keith Hampton,
Lauren Sessions Goulet, Lee Rainie, Kristen Purcell
• Findings: Do these
• Facebook users are more trusting than others. findings make
• Facebook users have more close relationships. social
networking
• Facebook users get more social support than
services (SNS)
other people.
OK to use in
• Facebook users are much more politically our
engaged than most people. teaching—or
• Facebook revives ―dormant‖ relationships. are they an
• Social networking sites are increasingly used to argument
keep up with close social ties. against using
• MySpace users are more likely to be open to SNS?
opposing points of view.

34. Social realities in 2012