Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008...6:43 pm
Facebook And Twitter
I have been meaning to write this post for a while- it is intended for those of you who would like to know a bit more about the benefits of using Facebook and Twitter.
For a few years now I have been using the social networking site Facebook; and I love it. It is my main way of keeping up to date with family, friends and a large number of colleagues. I usually update my Facebook status daily, but unless you are a ‘confirmed friend’ on Facebook you won’t have access to it or my full profile (ie. Photos, conversations etc). My account is a private account. The reason that I have chosen to do this is that I don’t want my pupils to have access to photos of my friends and family or my status- though I am sure that they would love to know where I am going shopping, what I though of the rugby score or what I am doing this evening! I sometimes use Facebook for work related purposes- things I do outwith school such as CPD gatherings etc. I have a number of ‘friends’ from other schools and companies. It is a very useful tool in a number of ways and I would encourage others to join the site and use it responsibly.
Another increasingly popular networking site is Twitter. I joined twitter around a year ago. It is a micro-blogging site where people can have open conversations online. At present it is mainly fellow Web 2.0 enthusiasts that I know using it. Over the last few months I have started to use Twitter a little more. I don’t really write much but I enjoy reading others conversations, answering questions where possible and catching up on the latest news from ‘the beeb’ etc. Currently Twitter is not something that I would want to use in school though I am of the understanding that it will be available as an application through Glow. If you are interested in joining in or following my conversations, give my account a click here.
Ollie Bray gave a really good review of Twitter here.
I am sure many of you reading this will know all about these sites, but I thought it was worth sharing for those of you who don’t.
Photo Credit: OB
7 Comments
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
I’ve been having an ongoing debate with some friends who are Youth Workers. They obviously have a different sort of relationship with the young people they work with, but we were in agreement that privacy is vitally important. Even for my own blog we discussed whether to keep work/life totally separate (maybe on two blogs), but we thought it important to show that we have balanced lives! lol.
I see these as great sites for staff to support and relate to each other, for CPD etc. There are obviously safety and privacy issues to grasp with, which is when the Privacy options in Facebook do come in handy. Facebook seems to appeal to a different clientèle than Bebo which is where a lot of my (primary) pupils have online presence…
Sharing good practice is obviously much easier with blogs etc, and Twitter especially lets you share it instantly, quickly and simply.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
hey miss watson
i’m not on facebook, i dont really liek these sorts of social networking sites, because they are so endless and you spend far too much time on them
twitter, as you know, i am quite actively using - i like it because it is like a blog, just that you are forced to write less than 141 characters so that you dont spend too long on writing it…
see you in bio on thursday
frido
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
@Rich- many thanks for your thoughts.
@Frido- Keep up the blogging and Twitter Frido! I am so happy to see pupils using Web 2.0!
Miss W
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
oh and I just picked this up on my feeds…
http://iteachweteach.com/
facebook for teachers basically…
why not teachbook? lol.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Hey Rich.
Cheers for this- I will check it out
Tess
January 19th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Just picked up a blog post from a new(ish) Computing teacher - Andy McSwan - who, inspired by TeachMeet09@BETT decided to set up a class Twitter account and will encourage his senior pupils to join Twitter to discuss his lessons. He even mentions using Twitter as a backchannel during his lessons. It will be interesting to hear how he gets on! http://andymc001.blogspot.com/2009/01/ict-in-my-classroom.html
January 21st, 2009 at 9:37 am
Thanks for this link David. I look forward to reading more
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