Week 4, Activity 7: Social Networking and Digital Citizenship

Before this week's lesson, when someone mentioned Social Networking, I always thought of Facebook.  I knew that Twitter and My Space were also Social Networking sites, but other than these three sites, I didn't know there were anymore social networking sites.

Through the course of this week's topic, I learned that social networking is everywhere.   Social Networking actually shows up in many different ways.  For example, Linked In is a social networking site for business contacts.  Poptropica is a social networking site for kids to meet up and play games together, against each other and to chat.  In actuality, any site on the web where people can converse could be considered a social networking site, I would even include blogging sites in this category.

I was not aware that there were any social networking sites that would appropriate for kids, much less for the classroom setting.   Again, my teaching path is very different from traditional teaching path, but I did manage to incorporate a blog into my obscure teaching world.  I created a blog for my music class where I will post pictures and practice materials.  It will also be used so that parents and students can communicate with me and possibly with each other.