We automatically diminish the ‘joy’ of the item once we (teachers) start referencing it.

I’m just not sold (do I need to be?) on the, say it with me now…’value’ of Facebook in education.

Can anyone point me to a strong educational Ning? One for students and integrated into a class?

Oh…and 15 comments…and from, you know, the ‘big uns’…wow!

I can’t see myself doing anything with my students on Facebook or Myspace (or even Ning, for that matter). These virtual communities are great when time or distance separates members, but for high school students who see each other for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, I don’t know (barring special projects, of course). I’m seeing this firsthand as my attempts to use Twitter in an educational context are spiraling down the drain (that’s another post altogether).

Ning is likely blocked at your school because although you can create the “walled garden”, I’ve heard that other, less school-appropriate Nings can link to yours and transfer content that way. Fuzzy on the details, but seems to make sense.

I won’t be accepting friend requests from students any time soon (I think most of mine are on MySpace, anyway), but yeah, that Limited Profile option is a nice one. I played around with it, but don’t have the need to implement it yet.

Thanks again for taking the time to write this up here, and for being among the first to welcome me to Facebook!

but now it’s really gone way beyond critical mass, to steal and recombine terms from above, it’s a social aggregator of a high power. every week an old friend or two somehow finds me and adds me on. one recent annoyance is the major spam that i get when people send me invites to play silly facebook apps.

for classroom use, however…well the only time i use facebook in the classroom is to warn my students when they post things that aren’t too positive about school. there’s a facebook group of kids at my school, and i got the admin of it to make it only visible to members…that way if they want to bitch about teachers it’s just as private as an msn convo.

OH. and. LEARN TO USE LIMITED PROFILE. about half of my “friends” are (ex)students, and after 9 out of 10 wall posts were from them i added them all to the limited list. i am a person with a social life as well as a teacher, and i have enough inane conversations @ school or on msn with children.

parting shot:

ning is the site to look to for classroom use. i haven’t gotten anything going there myself, because the site is blocked by my school’s filter (think that there are lots of not-so-proper sites pages there, or maybe it’s the ads that are sketchy), but combines a lot of great tools out there to give you lots of control over how the information goes out.

I use it to share pictures and home videos with my family and friends. My 78 year old grandfather even has a Facebook account and put up pictures he takes of his great-granddaughter (my daughter).
I play Scrabble (using the Scrabulous app) with my friends. Plus, I’ve reacquainted with some old friends. I don’t need to get back in touch with old high school and college acquaintances but it’s neat to see what people from your past are up to.

I would happy to be your “friend.”

@Alec, @Vicki, &@Ann – I’ve sent you all friend requests!

@Jeff & @Dan – I’ll look you guys up later this evening. Jeff, thanks for the follow on Twitter – is that a sunburst-colored Fender Jazz bass? Looks like we have the exact same one.

PS to @Jeff – I remember when 9:15 am was “wicked early”…those were the years BC (Before Children)