Social+Networking+for+Professional+Development

Social Networking According to a website designed strictly for social networking, social networking is defined as the grouping of people into specific categories. We use social networking for many types of activities such as friendships, dating, through school and athletics. With societ's change to a digital world many of our social networking is done online. Many people use social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others to keep up with friends and relatives but how can these sites and others help educators stay up to date with the latest trends and educational practices? The key is to be an active participant in these and other social networking sites and to share ideas with others.

 Teachers Helping Teachers Classroom 2.0 Classroom 2.0 is free a site where you can share ideas with other educators on how to use a certain technology in your classroom. It is a very useful tool that will allow teachers who a very experienced or novices to become familiar with technologies they feel they can utilize in their classroom. It provides tutorials, groups and bookmarked site for you to use. Very helpful site to get connected with the teaching world. There are some hoops you have to jump through to join but it takes less that 5 minutes.

Teacher Social Networking A social networking site that is very similar to facebook but claims it is strictly for teachers. It allows you to join groups, participate in threaded discussions, share materials and communicate one-on-one. This site seems a little cluttered and scattered for me but I can see some advantages for its use.

Professional Organizations Besides an online networking site, one may use a more traditional form of social networking by joining an organization. Organizations or associations allow for face to face interaction in which ideas are shared among individuals with similar characteristics by attending conferences or meetings. Listed below are some of the professional organizations available to educators.

Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education Organization of educators across all disciplines who share the goal of utilizing technology as a powerful tool in education.