Childress Chatter

Being the Digital Immigrant that I am, I have not really explored the world of social networking.  I know I should since the Digital Natives are so tied and bound to this avenue of communication and sharing.  I talk all the time about trying to tie education into the tools and avenues that our students are interested in.  Shame on me for not jumping in there.  Thanks to this class, I got my big toe wet as I explored Classroom 2.0 and Ning.  I found some interesting posts – some positive and some negative.  I was also pointed to a good article “Can new Media Be Taught in Schools?”. 

Problems are associated with these social networking sites, but the sites themselves are not the problems.  It is how we choose to use them.  It reemphasized to me the need we have as educators not only to investigate and integrate these new tools into our classrooms, but the vital need to educate our students on information literacy.  Online safety, relevancy and validity of information and copyright laws are only a few of the areas that we need to incorporate into our daily instruction in the classroom.