The tool I view in Classroom 2.0 was social networking. Social Networking is a way of connecting with other who have a common interest, whether that be to share ideas for educational purposes, getting others to be interested in what you have to offer, such as a business deal or just communicating with friends. The most common site for social networking, was through Ning. Some said this is due to the privacy offered, “embed media, the forums feature, the ability to personalize pages, the embedded blogging, groups, and the chat options.” (Cofino) Another extremely popular site is Facebook and this site is great because almost every one has a Facebook site so social networking is particularly easy. There are even specified social networking site, such as SchoolTown.net which could be a great resource for educators.
Another thread I read was, “The Value of a Social Network?”, this focused on the negative aspects in the educational aspect of social networking. One reply stated, “There are upwards of 7 million teachers in the US. Maybe 7,000 are doing anything with Web 2.0 BECAUSE of the 65,000 school districts, damn near all of them are blocking access to the very tools the teachers need to transform their practice.” This is true schools block a lot of useful potential teaching applications from the internet. I suggest that the blocking of certain things on the internet should be reevaluated, or making it possible for some teachers to be able to unblock certain sites when they are needed for instructional purposes.
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I agree that many teachers can interact and find things on the internet through social networking and that it is a very useful thing for educators to do. I also agree that school's should re-evaluate what they block and what they don't however the things that they do block are often blocked for the safety concern of the students and not for any other reason so I guess that it is cool that they are blocked, but maybe teachers should be given a special code or something to unblock them if they need to.
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