Blogathon

There are so many opinions about social networks such as facebook, myspace. One of them is using social networks on workplaces or schools. Although most of the instructers think that technology is unnecessary for education in the future, I think it is essential. And if there are certain policies, it can improve the performances of students and communication between peers.

  

What is your thoughts about social networks related to education?

Do you think it should be applied to education system? 

To summarize by computer, or to summarize by human...that is the question

To start with wordle.net, it was a good website that finds keywords and sort them by using rate in the text and the biggest word is the most used one. I shall continue with smmry.com. At first, it is a summarizing system that help us read quickly such long texts and help us to have an idea about text. Moreover, we can decide how many sentence do we want in summary. I think it's useful. I shall write about topicmarks.com. It's similar to smmry.com, but it's a bit advanced and organizes the text better. Summarizing websites such as smmry.com and topicmarks.com, help the student very much but when we look into them in the perspective of an instructor which is not good at using technology, students may abuse by plaguarising. Finally, I think they are helpful and useful because it gives us much more time than summarizing by hand.

EDUCATION RELATED TO SOCIAL NETWORKS

 INTRODUCTION

         I will start writing with the reason why I selected this research question. I chose this topic because I am interested in social networking and I am going to be a English Teacher. Thus; I wanted to make a research about social networks. To me, they are the future of teaching and learning. In addition, I will try to find whether they are useful for both teachers and students or not. There is a gap in classic education system. In Turkey, we students are exposed to a competition which causes to the education with one side “Learning by heart to pass exams”. I believe that is not enough to educate qualified students and I disagree as a student of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). In METU, we are taught to develop all skills related to profession. However, the education system in university is completely irrelevant to the education with high school education. In high school education, we are directed to learn by heart; however, in university, we are supposed to comment on questions. Use of social networks in education may fill the gap in the education system.  There are several issues to research in education related to social networks, which are: definition of social networks, role of social networks, decision to use social networks in education. I will continue with the definition what social networks are.

DEFINITION OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

Since technology has been developed so quickly in the recent years, people from all age groups are attracting the social networks as well. To define social networking, it includes many Internet-based tools that make people’s life easier in such issues listening, interacting, engaging and collaborating with each other. People use social networking to share recipes, photos, ideas and to keep friends updated on our lives. In many cases, we can use social networking tools from mobile devices, such as Smartphone or tablet pc, as easily as from a PC or Mac. Moreover, I will write about the social networks which are most popular in educational use. Some of them are Facebook, Twitter, Edmodo, Ning, BlogSpot.

ROLE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

- Blogs are the sites which people set up to provide information and opinions about events, ideas or anything else they want to talk about. In addition, Blogs can include links to other related sites, photos, videos and sound besides text. The number of bloggers is growing rapidly: According to eMarketer’s calculation, there were almost 23 million U.S. bloggers and more than 94 million blog readers in 2007.

- Twitter is a micro-blogging site. Twitter members post text messages called “tweets” of 140 characters or less, using either a computer or a cell phone. Other Twitter users can “follow”” your posts; however, you can decide if you want to let them follow you or not with privacy setting. According to Compete.com (a Web-traffic analysis service), Twitter had over 42 million unique visits in March 2012.

- Facebook is a social networking site where you can set up a profile, join different communities, create group pages and connect with friends. More than 175 million people currently use Facebook and it’s growing rapidly.

- Edmodo  is a secure social learning network for both educators and students. There are group codes which are chosen by teachers and students join the group with those codes. Teacher can set a quiz or assignment or share information to the students.

- Ning , which I believe is the best for educational use, requires payment to use. However, there are three options 19.95/year, 239.90/year, 599.90/year with different options and member numbers. By using this site, one can set up his own social site. It is said in the features of the website: “Thanks to built-in integration with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it’s easy to maximize your reach and spread the word. Plus add great Ning extensions for irresistible social functionality – live video streaming (Upstream), photo stickers and effects (Aviary) and email marketing (Constant Contact).”

Now, I shall continue with the relationship between social networks and today’s education.

DECISION TO USE SOCIAL NETWORKS IN EDUCATION

           There are several schools where Social Networks use in education. For example, at New Milford High School in New Jersey, the school’s official Facebook page keeps its 1,100 fans updated on sports events and academic achievements. Moreover, Students who traveled to Europe this spring for a tour blogged their experiences, and received comments from all over the world. On the other hand, other students have used the video voice service Skype to talk to their peers in other states for school projects.

For Principal Eric C. Sheninger, the micro-blogging tool Twitter has become his prominent supporter for professional development as well as school promotion, for example, through Twitter contacts, he formed a partnership with a company which donated technology equipment and training to the school, and he linked up with CBS News, which brought national exposure to the high school’s programs. And he said that he was used to be the administrator that blocked every social-media site, and now he was the biggest champion. Also he said that he was just someone who was passionate about engaging students and growing professionally, and he was using these free tools to do it. However, there is a fact that most of the schools still block internet access to such sites. On the other hand, there are also some educators that realize students feel at home and this is unlikely to disappear. According to a study by the Washington-based, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released early this year found that 73 percent of Americans ages from 12 to 17 now use social-networking websites, up from 55 percent in 2006. One of these educators, Steve Hargadon who is the creator of the 42,000-member Classroom 2.0 network on Ning, says that “Social networking is not going to go away.” In addition, he says that social networks are so powerful in terms of learning.

CONCLUSION

            According to these studies, the factors that affect teachers’ attitudes towards social networks can be argued in a few major areas. The most significant factors are considered to be the use of students' interest, global education by connecting all over the world and developing yourself as an educator. Specifically, this study posed the research question: "What are teachers' attitudes to using social networking sites, such as Twitter and  Facebook, with students?"


References;

Davis, M. R. (2010). Social networking goes to school. June 14, 2010, 03(03), 16-18,20,22-23.

Kapuler, D. (2011). Top 20 social networks for education. August 8, 2011,

Wecker, M. (2011). “More and more universities will use social media”: U.S. news education web producer ryan lytle. MAY 3RD, 2011,