When I started this endeavor back in early April, I was working to decide between three social networking sites: Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. After a short exploration, I decided that I was undecided and make the choice to keep all three and try them out. How hard could that be, right? With Twitter, I started following classmates and my professor. He, of course, was the most interesting person to follow. I felt limited by the number of characters that I was allowed per message. I would just put up what I was doing at that moment, but I didn’t feel like I was contributing much. So I eventually let my postings fade on that account. About the same time as my original Twitter membership, I spread the word among my students that I was putting up a SNS site. It took about two days before the first student found me. She was a very active MySpace member, with over 400 friends, her own blog posts, music in the background, the works. She had tons of photos on her page, and she made it really interesting to visit her page. She was the inspiration for me dressing up my site. Her name was Rachel. When the bad news happened in our community with the two young men drowning, Rachel was were I found out first. Rachel is still one of my top friends.

I also set up a Facebook account because I had heard that high school students liked Myspace and college students liked Facebook, and I wanted to build a big network of people I knew. One of my seniors was my first Facebook friend, and having her on my account led to others who had graduated already to come and find me. I have been able to keep up with students near and far. So which site has had the most significant impact on me? For numbers, Myspace friends outnumber Facebook friends 2 to 1. For interactive applications that are quirky, fun, and sometimes eye opening entertainment (the Testimonials), it is definitely Facebook. Also with Facebook, I like the Wall, the pokes and hugs and roses, and the notification updates on when friends are added.

So how has having a social networking account changed my life? It has really given me a good feeling about myself being on these sites.  Even though I only have a total of 90 friends to date, it has been a good experience for me to come home and get messages from my students about their days.  They are not allowed to show me pictures at school, so they post them on their sites (like prom pictures or family pictures) and I can see them there.  Sometimes they ask me questions that they are afraid to ask in class, and I can answer them in privacy.  I feel more effective because I am a better communicator with them.  I still have many kids who do not use SNS, but I get a new group of students next year, and I will encourage them to communicate with me and with each other.

So when I asked my students why they have social networking sites, they overwhelming response was that they use it to keep in touch with friends and family that they don’t get to see socially very often.  One student keeps in touch with members from an out-of-state church camp he attends every summer in Arkansas.  When I surveyed the students who do not have social networking sites, their reasons for not having one were it took too much time and that instant messaging was easier, several people did not like interacting with someone that they could not see, and some found the sites boring. 

Well, my two accounts (Facebook and MySpace) have grown to about eighty members, a mixture of students, former students, and classmates.  I don’t use the blog feature very much, but I do use the comments and messaging quite a bit.  I also go out and view pictures and comment on those.

The teacher group that I joined has been very nice for discussing classroom issues.  It has a sizeable membership, and there are a lot of people posting on the site.  I have only joined this one group, and reading the entries on it keep me very busy.

I have decided to keep my accounts after this class.  I enjoy coming home and catching up on the days events.  I have students who don’t talk much in class who communicate with me via these accounts.  One student was nervous about prom and wanted some encouraging words.  Another had a death in the family.  And another lost a family pet.  Kids say things here that they don’t say at school.  SNS keep some kids from feeling like they are alone in this world.  I think it is a nice evolution of technology that has occurred.

So I was trying to locate public groups that teachers might join and discuss classroom issues. Well, while searching for groups on MySpace, did a search on math. I did not select all categories, I was just on whatever group it had defaulted to, and to my surprise (gasp), I found 15 groups, most of which were hate groups! But on a serious note, when I searched for teaches in all categories, I did find this one, which has over 1700 members.

http://groups.myspace.com/theteachersroom

The current discussion is on class size, which I know many of us struggle with. Large class sizes are harder to teach. The kids just distract each other, making it harder for them to learn and for us to teach.

So if anyone has a MySpace account, you may want to check this group out.

I sent the following response to a classmate who was undecided about how much to be involved in SNS’s.

I was one of those people who said I would never get a social networking site. But once I set up my pages (MySpace and Facebook), I told my students about them and asked them to add me as a friend. I have gained a small group of students between both sites. My students have wonderful poetry, blog writings, comments, and pictures to offer in return. Yes, some of them are silly, too, but that’s okay. They come to my MySpace and Facebook accounts and look at my pictures and send me comments. The way I see it, my kids have a lot to offer, just as I have a lot to offer them. They have given me great advice about how to spruce up my pages, and it pleases them to be a part of my world. I don’t feel like I am giving up my privacy; I see it as sharing more of myself with them. If I do get to the point where it becomes too overwhelming, I can always disappear into cyberspace. I know that inviting students may not work for everyone, but teachers know their students and can gauge whether it is a good idea.

As far as renewing old acquaintances go, it is up to you. Remember that people do change, so people who were not very interesting ten years ago can be very interesting to get to know now. I say take the chance, and if you don’t like them, just delete them out of your cyberworld.

On Friday, I am going to a math leadership meeting in Lexington, and I am going to collect teachers there who have SNS sites and add them to my list. In order to build relationships, you have to put yourself out there, for better or worse, and see what happens. As the Kentucky lottery slogan goes, “you can’t win if you don’t play.” So I encourage everyone to get out there and try.

I have yet to broaden out and find more adults for my Myspace and Facebook accounts, but my student population is growing. I find that I get to know my kids even better by reading their postings and viewing their pictures. I have almost thirty friends between the two accounts. Some of my former students have found me and are writing about their college experiences.

Having once been a person who said she would never take part in such forms of communication, I am definitely a convert as I can now see both the educational and social value of using SNS accounts.

The last post to my Myspace blog is a thread where students can discuss their memories of two of our students who died in a fishing/boating accident this weekend. I knew both the boys from my ESS group, and they were both wonderful students and will be dearly missed. I have such a heavy heart about the whole incident, such a tragic accident, and it will be a very emotional day tomorrow.

I have gotten three SNS site subscriptions going, and am starting to collect friends. So far, I have only people that I know, either from class or from my school. I will next try to go out and recruit educators from other places. None of the educators at my school do either Facebook or MySpace, so I am going beyond the local boundaries. More to come…

Well, I am totally revising what I had in the space earlier in the week. I am closing out the Twitter account and have created a Facebook account. It was very easy to set up, and I personalized it with some of my own photographs. For those of you who are nature lovers, I have photos to share from my area (Stanton). I have added a couple of friends to my page so far and signed both of their walls. I even got “bitten” by a Zombie. I see why kids love the SNS pages. It gives them a chance to share their creativity. Several kids are still trying to talk me into a MySpace page, so they can add me as a friend and get the chance to show off their page. Guess I know what I will be doing this evening…

Addendum: http://www.myspace.com/education4ever is my url for MySpace