Social Networking

Thinking of all the wonderful tools out there for social networking these days, I laugh remembering just a few years ago when I heard the term Facebook for the first time (I actually don't think the used the real name but you get the point).  When I was sitting in one of my undergrad classes in 2004 (approximately), I remember one of the guys talking about this website where you could see the people that would be in your class at MSU and how it was called "Something Face."  That's when I went home, started trying to figure out what he was talking about...and from there it's just exploded!  I like to think that I was one of the "originals" since you needed a valid COLLEGE email to sign up!  From that point, Facebook became a staple in my personal life allowing me to connect to old friends from high school, college (once I graduated), and even family in different parts of the world!  It is something that is at my fingertips (now that I finally joined the IPhone world) and seems to be something I feel I don't know how I would personally stay connected to others if I didn't have (super weird to think like that!).  This is also something that I have used to get connected and get to know some of my co-workers whom I may not see everyday.  It's quite amazing what Facebook has done to this world!

As for twitter, this has just recently become something I am interested in.  More to follow people in both my professional and personal life (and even a little celeb stalking-don't pretend you don't do it too).  I have found there are a lot of educational resources on twitter and it's kind of amazing that this is something I am just getting into!  Twitter is one of the things I question using within my classroom also, since most (if not all) of my students seem to be "tweeting."

There are so many more networking tools that I have just come across that I look forward to incorporating into my life at some point (especially the Ning for MACUL that seem like AWESOME resources for the educational world)!  I am thankful to be able to have this opportunity to use these tools and hope to incorporate networks into my classrooms (especially since everything is going towards online and 21st century learning).  I think that networking is soon to be a way to stay in contact with your students both in school and online (since one day some of us will be teaching completely online classes like this one) and we will need to know how and where to interact through different networking opportunities!