Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Facebook with Elementary Kids--Yay or Nay?
I tried to post this as a comment underneath my previous "Tweet, Tweet" post, but I had difficulties. It looks like Alison Lesueur at Holt Elementary is asking the same questions about the reality of using Facebook in the elementary schools as I am. Read her post and my comment. What do the rest of you think about using Facebook to promote your classroom, school or Media Center?
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Elizabeth, my AIG teacher and I decided to try using Edmodo instead of Facebook. I've already had a couple students ask me if I am on Edmodo. The AIG teacher is creating a "group" for a 4th grade research project so I can join the group and send them tips and answer questions. Her math group is already online asking each other questions about homework. We'll see where it goes from here. Unfortunately, she set up a teacher's group on Edmodo and only 2 of us are currently signed up. So I think we need to work on the teachers to get them on board.
ReplyDeleteNext I need to set up a Holt Media Center page to start sending kids book recommendations, etc. I'm excited about the possibilities.
Nice Voice Thread by the way. Our kids have very low tech skills. Did they work on some of it themselves or did you lead them through it?
Do you and Lena monitor all the comments sent back and forth between the students on Edmodo? Do the kids work on it at home, school, or a combo? About half our students do not have internet access at home, which I think is a battle you might have at Holt too.
ReplyDeleteWith this Voicethread project, I taught the students how to comment and they took off from there. These students in particular probably had more computer experience than others. The small size of the group was helpful more than the level of tech experience the students had, though. What they needed most from me was guidance on elaborating on their thoughts and explaining their comments. I knew they had learned a lot in their class plant studies but it wasn't evident in their comments at first.
I will have to check out Edmodo! Maybe my AIG facilitator will be interested as well!
Edmodo apparently works only with "groups", your personal page only shows posts from those groups, there does not seem to be a way to send a personal message from one user to another. That's how it looks anyways. I'll have to investigate further. Our kids definitely don't have as much access to technology at home. But since we are starting this with the AIG kids, the teacher has more flexibility and more time to work with them on special projects that will include working on Edmodo. A few have already used it at home.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in trying Voicethread. My upper grades are flex this year and apparently there are very few flex times in the classroom schedules. So I've only been seeing the older kids as they race through to get books (15-20 minutes with the teacher). I'm probably going to have to join the tech teacher in the lab in order to get instruction done.