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Sterling Spencer

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How might teachers implement sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube to engage students in their education?

Using today's social networking sites may be an excellent way to engage student in their education because students are already engaged in these sites. I could imagine a teacher taking video notes and then posting it to Youtube for the class.

The teacher may also make use of having a Twitter account. Instead of being forced to have all of the student's cell phone numbers, the students could just follow a teacher's classroom specific Twitter account. Using Twitter, the teacher could also post links to his/her Youtube videos.

This kind of thing could keep students thinking about school more.
What ways do you think teacher should implement social networking sites?

Topics: digital learning education
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    Brian Cerda

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    Mar 23 2012: First to the main point. I would keep in mind public opinion interacting with students on facebook may have negative consequences and unhappy parents overreacting to news stories. However, youtube is a different story. I believe every teacher should have video lectures available on youtube to either replace or supplement lectures. it s a better model to lecture in video where students can post questions as comments below and the teacher can clarify by responding. This frees up more time for actual problem solving and application of knowledge in class.

    Secondly, John Penn, while i agree we should work to make things as interesting as possible. we have to except that if there is a list of curriculum to be taught every student will have a lack of interest in some fields. So it should be a two headed effort to both make things more interesting, and find ways to teach students about things they may not care about at all.

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