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Social Networking

Social media is often associated with young audiences and can be motivating for students. The most common sites include Facebook, a site that allows students to friend others and communicate with text, video and pictures. Also, Twitter is a service that allows people to subscribe to updates from both friends and celebrities and broadcast themselves to others.

As you might imagine, effective use of this technology might allow us to connect with students on their turf, bringing the classroom to their life outside of school. Given the ability for students to share information about themselves, schools are apprehensive about this technology. Knowing that, here are some tips for social networks:

• Know your school's policy about friending students on Facebook or students ability to follow you on Twitter.
• If allowed, set up pages for your class or activity, allowing students to follow your class, but not your personal activity. This would allow you to make announcements to students that will appear on their walls. This works particularly well if you sponsor school activities.