Social+Networks

Social Networking Newz Crew www.newzcrew.org Newz Crew is a project associated with PBS Newshour Extra and Global Kids. It provides a standards-based social network for high school aged kids to discuss issues in a forum reaching beyond the traditional classroom environment. Global Kids is an educational organization based in New York that supports urban youth. Their mission is to help young people become literate participatory global citizens and community leaders. Important issues such as abortion, personal freedoms, female presidents, and the war on terror are just a few of the topics up for discussion. There are restrictions and requirements for Newz Crew involvement. Students must participate in a safe space with commitment. The practical application for a school library is that Newz Crew provides a safe yet stimulating and educational social network. It is a good way to ease a resistant school administration into social networking. There are guidelines, but the site is ran and monitored by high school students. Students must read articles and comment. The Newz Crew philosophy is that when there is a deep, thoughtful exchange of ideas everyone emerges with a better understanding of themselves and the world around them.

I think the school library application is to provide an intellectually stimulating social network that is thought provoking, safe, and perhaps life-changing. Students must be able to discuss issues with intelligence and an understanding of the importance of the discussion of divergent ideas. The idea is to get kids thinking about the issues that affect their lives, but more importantly it gives teenagers the opportunity to discuss and disagree in a civil and open-minded way. I think Newz Crew has great potential for prompting teenagers to research and stay abreast of current events in order to be fully able participants. History and English teachers, particularly at the AP level, could include Newz Crew participation as an assignment. I think Newz Crew gives teenagers an option for social networking that requires deeper thought than typical social networks. It lets kids see and understand they can be participants in an ongoing dialog that helps promote open-mindedness and has unfathomable educational benefits. Teenagers are interested in global issues, but often feel disenfranchised and powerless. Newz Crew gives teenagers a means to become involved and have a voice in the important issues they face. Discussion issues could also be tied into books on related topics.

Cindy Denny

Xanga

URL : [|www.xanga.com]

Description: Zanga is a blogging website that purports to be "the blogging community." The main website has constantly updated snippets from member blogs. Xanga is similar to Blogger or other blogging websites. From a rather amusing online article, I read that the difference between Xanga and Blogger is that Xanga appeals more to teenage girls than the "serious" bloggers of Blogger.com. I don't quite know if I believe that, but the article also goes on to say that Xanga has a better commenting system and that the website itself is very easy to use and quite responsive. In the case of applying the use of Xanga to a school library setting, the fact that Xanga seems to have a large teenage population would likely be a selling point and not a liability.

School library application: I would use this in a library setting to create an online book club for students. The students could blog about books that they have read and then they could take turns making comments on each others' blogs. They could also learn to use tagging so that they could read the blogs of people outside the group who also have read the same books. Of course, the whole concept of an online book club doesn't necessarily have to be just about books! One could have a graphic novel/comic book clue or--like the public library near my house--an anime club. For elementary school, the blogs could be tied to Texas Bluebonnet Books, etc. An online book club could be somewhat anonymous (each student could have a "handle" and only the librarian would know each student's identity). The purpose of the anonymity would be to allow students who are otherwise shy or anti-social or on the margins of the typical school routine a safe place to discuss books and the ideas in the books safely. It would also allow a certain safety for students dicussing "controversial" books. With all the recent stories of student suicides from bullying, this type of anonymous interaction with peers about books might be a welcome relief for students on the fringes.

Submitted by Katie (Katherine) Yu

**[|www.facebook.com/northlme] **
===**Facebook is used, for this particular school library, as a means of keeping parents involved and aware of what is happening in the library. Several lessons were mentioned, as well as, what research project each grade level was working on. There were several posts about upcoming events, such as the Book Fair and needing volunteers for that Book Fair, as well. It serves as a multi-purpose communication piece for the parents of the elementary school. **===


 * I think librarians could use this social network as a communication piece for their students and parents. Posting upcoming events, research projects being done, photos of students at work (assuming FERPA laws are followed), and allowing for comments and questions would help keep parents and students informed of what was happening through the library. It is something I am seriously considering for my own library now. I envision asking questions related to our studies to have students get their parents to log on and reply as a means of driving home whatever concept I have been teaching and to act as a tool to get students and their parents talking about what is going on at school. I can also use a Facebook page to get parents up-to-date about acceptable use policies for their child at school, available resources for their children should someone need additional tutoring or help on a particular subject. It has gotten me excited thinking about all the ways I could open the lines of communication for the parents of my students! **


 * Submitted by: Bethany Brant **

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/
I think Goodreads is an excellent example of a social networking site for schools and libraries. This site is dedicated to sharing a love of books and reading not only with those who visit, but also connecting members to each other through literature. Here you can read book reviews or look up books using a keyword search. Not only does this site have book reviews from other members, it also has commentary by the authors. The site also shares links as to where authors will be appearing so you can see them in person and hear behind the scenes stories about their books. You can also share your favorite books with “friends” on the site.

The librarian or teacher could join and create an account for the class to share and post their own books reviews, and see content posted by other readers. Of course with all sites, you would need firewall for safety purposes. I like the idea of using the site to have discussion groups for the students to log into and share their thoughts with other readers. I have used this site’s “shelves of recommendations” to find new books to add to my classroom library as well as to recommend books to my students. In addition, Goodreads has videos that contain interviews with authors. Children can view them to learn more about the background of their favorite authors. Here they can also hear the books being read or even watch the trailers to find a new book. I looked for a place to post a video; maybe students could share a book talk.

CreativeCommons [|www.creativecommons.com]

This website offers a place to share and download pictures and music. What I think is great about this site it that you can find the copy right info on the site. It also gives you a chance to open an account and save your pictures in a gallery that you can organize. You should sign in to Yahoo first. Then in the same browser window, type in the creativecommons web address in the address bar. This allows you to save your pictures in a gallery. The benefit of this is so that you can quickly find the picture again and also have the information to give credit to the owner. Click on "Find" and then you should see a green bar at the type of the screen. Type in what kind of pictures you are searching for and then hit return. You should get a variety of pictures that pop up. I use pictures from Flickr. If you click on the Jamendo tab, that contains music. Select what you like and save it to your Gallery.

I've been using this site a lot lately to create book trailers and to show students a place to get pictures that are not illegally used for projects.

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Holly Polasek

LibraryThing

[|www.librarything.com]

This website provides many services, from online book cataloging to recommendations and reviews from other book aficionados. I like this site for the online book club aspect. I, first, found this site as I was researching for a paper, on online book clubs of all things. Now I use it for book recommendations and to simply be a part of a community of readers. I am currently part of two online book clubs through this site.

As a school librarian, I would introduce it to the teachers as a tool to organize and catalog their personal or school book collections. Second, I would encourage teachers to use the book review section for books recommendations for the students as well as themselves. Thirdly, I would utilize the online book club section to start a book club.

-Samantha Vo

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">I found this site to be particularly useful in displaying visual aids, hosting events, and publicizing highlighted or upcoming events in the library setting. Flickr offers so much more in respect to featuring photographs with added features that incorporate titles, tags, location (geotracking activities), and people. Connecting with others is an important feature on flickr due to its comment space below photographs where you can save favorites and makes notes. ======

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Students visiting the library may take virtual tours of museum events in which organizations feature photographs in preparation of events, featured contributors and artists, and event guests that may later be viewed from an archive. ======

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">This site also allows its visitors to simply appreciate the photographs using the Explore feature in which one could discover some its mash-up features as geotagged items by clicking on the world map. ======

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<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #0000cc; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">http://www.flickr.com/photos/ aj_fotos/sets/ 72157625109250067/ ======

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #0000cc; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Sylvana Casso
Good Reads [] The suggested use for the library setting would be to use this website as a way to share ideas, questions, and information about a particular book. Essentially this website is an online book club. Another great thing about this website is when someone posts a review, and then all of the people on their friends list can see their post. This way others could get excited about the similar book.

A way that I could incorporate the website Good Reads is by having the students read the discussion comments from our literature book, “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen and blog about their view points on the discussion topics that are posted. It would be a literature circle online. This way the students are discussing with not their classmates about the book but also discuss with other people online about “Hatchet”. Joseph Rodriguez

= Glogster.com = = [|www.glogster.com] <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">﻿ = Glogster is a social networking website that allows a user to create "Posters" (which includes pictures, text, music, etc...) that can be shared with other members and the broader online community. This site is almost a mashup of a blog, flickr, and facebook. Users can chat with one another or simply create and share finished products. There are various categories of "Posters" that can be viewed and shared for free, including an "Education" section.

I can see many possibilities for uses in a library setting. Students could create posters surrounding the plot, character or setting of a particular book. Librarians and teachers could create and share "Posters" portraying highlights from a particular subject or current topic/event. Groups could collaboratively work on a "Poster" to share (and comment on each other's work) surrounding group subjects such as authors or genres within the library. There are many possibilities for this site, and most definitely on my "Delicious" site! -Melinda Martin

** ﻿ Social Learning Tool **



** Description: ** Gaggle.net is a safe web based internet communication system for students where teacher is always in control. They provide tools to feel secure when giving students online learning tools. ** The following social learning features are offered by Gaggle. net: **
 * Website: [] **
 * ** Gaggle Social Learning Wall ** : Similar to the most popular social networking experiences providing profile based connections with sharing of content, text, and communication.
 * ** Message Boards: ** Support curriculum and extend learning with ongoing classroom discussions. Teachers can create boards restricted to specified students and classes, with all of Gaggle's filtering in place.
 * ** Gaggle Blogs: ** Provide a place where students can share their thoughts, ideas, and creativity in a secure environment. Teacher blogs can be shared with parents for easy home-school communication.
 * ** Gaggle Email: ** Allows safe electronic communication for schools and students. Web-based service for access anywhere with constant filtering and control of student accounts.
 * ** Chat Rooms: ** Offer live communication for discussions during classes, school, or after school. Teachers can create rooms restricted to specified students and classes, with all of Gaggle's filtering in place.
 * ** MyGaggle: ** Drag and drop interface allows users to easily customize content and tools.

** Use in the classroom: ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">We actually use this website in our school! Through Gaggle.net, students save their work to their homework drop box so that teachers can grade it online—paper free! Another useful feature of this website is Zoho documents. It is used to work on projects with a buddy. If both students are on Gaggle, they can open the document, and then pick a spot or sentence to write. As they type their work, it shows up on their buddy’s screen. This characteristic is helpful in projects, homework and essays. On Gaggle’s Profile Pages, students and teacher can share their favorite websites, books, games, quotes, and music. They also have instant access to their favorite websites. The Social Wall is even better than the profile pages. Both students and teacher can upload photos and images, blog, comment, laugh and have a good time. The Social Wall brings friends, teachers, and classmates together to share poems, art, and games. Whatever you do, it will always be a very useful online learning tool.

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Kathy Starr

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">www.shelfari.com
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Description: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">This is a website that allows a person to create their own virtual bookshelf. Other features include: a log (to keep track of books to be read, are reading, and have read), discuss books, and reviews of books and authors and a place to write them.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Incorporation in the Classroom:
===<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">First, as a teacher/librarian I would take advantage of the log feature. Once my students create a Shelfari account and become my "friend" I can post the class reading list. It will then become their list of books to read. Then they can track their progress using Shelfari. It will save paper and money and I can check their progress throughout the allotted time they have to read. === ===<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Second, Shelfari provides students with an online literature circle. They can discuss, read and write reviews, find similar books, etc. I think it is a great tool, they will not only have their classmates, but other people on the internet to join them in exploring books. ===

Heather Schlote

=**DELICIOUS**= This is a social bookmarking site that allows you to bookmark, retrieve and share favorite and useful websites with others.
 * []**

In the library, this can be used to save favorite sites that can be used in research for class projects. If the class is working on their state research projects, the librarian can bookmark sites that may help the students narrow their searches for information and guide the lower grade levels to specific pages for information.
 * Lavina Padgett**

Facebook is a social networking website that allows users to post information about what they are currently doing, locate or discover new interests, and share photos/videos with others.
In a school library setting Facebook can be used to teach "digital citizenship", collaboration, discussions/debates. It is a way students can connect with others around the world and share ideas, information, and opinions. I would use Facebook for booktalks. Students would use Facebook for discussions, to write reviews, and to post pictures/videos/art related to the discussion of the book.

<span style="color: #ff00ab; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Melissa Titus

= WordPress﻿ = = ﻿[|www.wordpress.com] =

Wordpress is a website where you can set up a blog which you can use to write about anything.
==== I would use this site to set up a classroom blog where students could post discussions or thoughts on any material we have been reading. It would also be a good way to communicate to students and it could be at their convenience. It could also be used as a class project (wonder where that idea came from) where studetns create their own "columns" as a news team to let everyone know upcoming events and general information. ====

Rachel Roberts
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Educational Games Research

http://edugamesresearch.com/blog/ This blog was created by a UNT doctoral student, John Rice. He includes some great research articles that revolve around educational games or games used for educational purposes. The blog has received blogging honors and Mr. Rice's articles have been featured in publications such as Journal of Technology and Teacher Education.

This would be a great resource for librarians looking for ideas for using games in an educational setting. One post discusses games that could be used in the ESL classroom which would be wonderful to pass on to ESL teachers on a school campus. Another post discusses using iPad apps with literature. This would be a great resource for a library that is able to include iPads in their lab. The best part about blogs is that they are always being updated so they are current with today's trends. This would be great for a school librarian to incorporate into the library setting or to pass on helpful information to the relevant teachers.

Jaclyn Morrison

MySpace
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This is the personal website of Meredith Farkus, a "librarian, writer, teacher, and tech geek." Farkus describes several technologies that are now being incorporated into libraries, including MySpace. She discusses the importance of librarians connecting and interacting with their patrons. She says that if librarians create a MySpace account for the libary just to "look cool" or give information, then it will fail because users (especially young users) will feel intruded upon in the online world that they feel belongs to them. What librarians need to do is to seek information from their patrons. By asking questions about library preference (hours, fines, etc.), then the library can help users to take some ownership of the library and find it to be an essential resource as the library adapts to the users' needs.

MySpace would be a great place to set up some sort of poll where visitors could vote on certain topics that libraries find themselves struggling with. For example, if a school library was considering banning a certain social network or Wiki from its computers, perhaps a poll on the MySpace account could read, "Should the library ban __? Yes/No." Not only would this interaction encourage involvement of the community or specific, targeted groups (like high school students), but it could also offer some very helpful information to the library about what its patrons expect from the library. Another idea might be to create a blog on the MySpace account for the English classes, for example, in which students are able to engage in an online discussion about a particular excerpt from something they are currently reading in class. This way, perhaps some students who normally would not speak out in class would have an opportunity to express themselves to their classmates in a way that is more comfortable to them.

Deborah Maples