Yesterday, I tuned into the Classroom 2.0 Live Elluminate session on Educational Social Networks. The map below shows the locations of the 90 plus participants from across the globe for this session!

I enjoyed the session and wanted to share a few brief notes and thoughts from the hour long session. The presentation started by polling everyone on two questions:

1. Have you used social networking?

2. Have you used social networking to connect with educators?

Most of the people participating in this particular session had at least dabbled in social networking environments, fewer specifically for connecting with educators.  The session was delivered from the perspective of the evolution of the web from 1.0 to 2.0 tools and use to social networking.

Notes:

Putting things into the context of where we are at today:

• Blogs (Web Logs) – chronological posting format with option for commenting
• WIKIs: instant, multi-user, and collaborative publishing
• Social Networking: The aggregation of web tools for building community and content.

The building blocks of the environment are

• Profile page = personal portfolio, assessment, connecting tool
• Friending = PLN, colleague relationships, content finding
• Forum = asynchronous discussions
• Photo/Video/Audio uploading = content repository/showcase

Comments of Note:

1. Teachers need to use tools for themselves, and experience their own learning before these new tools become used and well integrated into classroom curriculum delivery. This comment is totally in line with the discussions held within the Ontario PLP cohort with Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach.

2. We are now experiencing the confluence of social networking and collaboration.

Throughout the presentation, participants were commenting and sharing ideas in real time via the session chat window. The chat window was very active. The resources listed below are items that caught my attention while monitoring the chat window.

Resources/Recommended Reading:

1. Here Comes Everybody (book) by Clay Shirky

2. Listing of social network sites.

3. Grou.ps is a Ning like site.

4. Findings from a Pew study on Internet use, social networking and social isolation.

5. Educational Networkis a non commercial WIKI focused on connected educators.

6. Listing of social studies web 2.0 projects.

The session and chat window activity was recorded and will be posted on the Classroom 2.0 website. I enjoyed participating in the session and will certainly continue to participate as time permits.

~ Mark