Explore Social Networking
I don’t have a lot to say about this thing. It turns out I already had a MySpace account. I created a new one anyway using the same email address that I use for most of the Things in this class: Ridelto@hotmail.com. My MySpace url or web address is www.myspace.com/ridelto. It doesn’t make much sense to create a new website when I already have the www.ridelto.blogspot.com website as well as the Wiki site, the igoogle page, the MS live pages etc. Also, I don’t really like the way MySpace sites look like and other things. I don’t like the layout system they have and I certainly really don’t like that several wannabe musicians use the MySpace customization feature to sell their product. I am not sure about which one of these sites had most useful features. They are both similar. Perhaps MySpace is more appealing. From my point of view they are just like the rest of the websites explored previously in these 23 Things. The main difference is that you can talk to people and socialize while you are on your site. This is not new, but I think is the main reason why MySpace is so popular. I remember loving ICQ before America Online took over to destroy the essence of it and make it into a money machine (I never used it again so I really don’t know if they corrected this). This combined with the possibility to listen to music while you are working on your space and texting or talking via webcam makes the difference. I personally don’t do any of those things but I can see how it can be used in the classroom, for example to have and meet a distant class friend, say in a different country, with which regularly a conversation is established during a lesson to collaborate and share ideas.
I searched for friends but the only one that I decided to add was my younger daughter Alberta. I know that my other two daughters had a MySpace site for years but apparently their accounts are private so I didn’t find them.
Educator should know how social networking works because they could use it in their classroom as I explained above to get their students to collaborate with other students around the globe in real time. Another reason is because most students, at least in HS, are using MySpace and FaceBook to socialize and communicate with each other, therefore, we should be informed about these tools.
Unfortunately, there are issues discouraging teachers from having their own MySpace account to interact with their students. Some people believe that adding your students as your “friends” is not right, especially because this teacher-students interaction will happen outside the school environment which is not seen proper by many. The word “friend” when referring to your students doesn’t seem right. I, personally, don’t plan in using this MySpace site, as I did with the previous one I had, which I made before I became a teacher.
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