Digital Blog Post #F- Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Communicating and Collaborating with Social Media offered a unique perspective on using social media within the classroom. Growing up with Social Media as a norm, we were highly discouraged in school to befriend our teachers, whether it was through Facebook, or twitter, or whatever Social Website we saw fit. Within this chapter I felt that it was encouraged to have students, teachers, and parents stay connected through social media.

Although I see how this could be beneficial it's still difficult for me to accept. I think this is because I'm using the term "Social Media" rather than educational networking. Through education networking teachers can still use education and be professional about it, while in my mind I'm thinking about teachers communicating through Facebook, which is a very casual way of communicating.
Granted I was part of many Facebook groups which teachers facilitated and kept up with, that was very beneficial during high school.

I did not agree with teachers and students texting. There are very few circumstances in which I feel educators and students would need to communicate through text. I know in high school I would text one of my teachers, but I was part of the leadership team in their class and needed to be in contact with them when it came to our theatre club. I believe that communicating through educational sites like the suggested blogs, wikis, or edmodo accounts make more sense to me because I see the drawn boundary line between casual and professional relations.

The challenging part about this chapter will be to draw the line between professionalism and casual communications. Finding which social outlook will benefit my classrooms the best in the future.

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Resources: 

Edward, A. (2015, October 9). To be social or not to be socialThat is the question.  - Tackk. Retrieved October 9, 2015.

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.