Social Networking

Social Networking is a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts. It is an online community with a common interest who use a website or other technologies to communicate with each other and share information, resources, etc. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+network)

I absolutely love getting to share ideas with other people. I follow Facebook pretty closely. I love being able to stay in touch with old friends and keep track of how they're doing. Over the course of the last year and a half, I am beginning to see how helpful they can be for teaching as well. I started Pinterest a couple of years ago, mainly to find great DIY projects for my home, and I have fallen in love with it. But just over the course of the summer, I have seen how helpful it can be in education as well. So many fellow teachers have created lessons or projects and want to share it with everyone. My philosophy is "Why reinvent the wheel?" If someone has put in all the leg work and is willing to share it with you, USE IT!!!!! I absolutely LOVE Pinterest. 

In the last 2 weeks, I have joined Google+. I really like that you can follow certain topics that interest you. They will pop up any postings on your home screen. You can also post text, pictures, videos, etc. I love the Hangouts and that you can have a personal chat with someone. What's also really cool is the video portion of Hangouts. I think this would be really cool to have a Video Hangout with others schools around the country or even world to show them how diverse we can be. You could also have students follow certain educational sites. I followed Khan Academy, and they are always posting math videos on their page. I could have different students, whether low or high, watch certain videos they post and comment or attempt some problems. It's a very neat way to incorporate a social networking site into education. The kids love it! 

Please share other things you like about Google+ as I am still learning, or any other social networking sites you love for education!