Dana Boyd's Social Network Podcast

Just finished listening to Dana Boyd's podcast regarding her research on students and their use of social networks. I thought it was very smart of her to begin her podcast with the reminder that social networks are ubiquitous among teenagers today. Most adults, including K-12 and higher ed teachers and administrators still don't get that, but we NEED TO!!

I agree with Dana that educators often find themselves stuck in the middle between parents and students expectations of how social networks should and should not be used - in school and at home. Parents and teachers must team up to help students understand the appropriate (and inappropriate) uses of these powerful tools.

Dana's discussion about friends lists as "imagined audiences" was very insightful. I had never thought through the differences between students with public profiles and broad friends lists versus those with private profiles and select friends lists. These students uses of social networks are quite different and educators need to understand both uses.

One of her most powerful points was that online social networks lack the "social context" to help students understand what behavior is acceptable. The example she used was that being in the classroom is quite different than being on the beach. Students understand the "social context" of these physical locations and would never, for example, lay out a beach towel in the middle of a classroom and start rubbing on suntan oil. Unfortunately for students, this social context doesn't exist on social network sites and therefore many students post things that come back to haunt them.

Dana gave a bunch of good suggestions for educators. Some that I believe may be most important for those of us in higher ed are:

• We need to realize that content on personal profiles often mirrors what's going on in the real world
• We need to be watchful for students whose profiles suggest they need help and then make sure that help - whatever it may be - is given
• Privately (not via posts) ask students about questionable information they post (or others post about them). For example: what do you think your parents would think about that?... what do you think a potential employer would think about that?... do you think that post could affect your safety or the safety of others?)
• Create your own profile AND keep it current and NOT LAME!! Write about your experiences without lecturing.
• Realize social networks are not classrooms!

I was very impressed overall with Dana's podcast, both as a parent and as a university administrator.

What I Learned Tonight

My Web2.0 adventures this evening led me to Liz Davis' blog. She has a regular post called "Two for Tuesdays" that lists two new sites she's run across in the past week. Her post for today included an intriguing travel site I had never heard of - SideStep.Com. Seems to work very much like Orbitz. Always nice to have another site to try to find the best price on flights and hotels.

Classroom 2.0 Live in Chicago?

The Classroom 2.0 Ning site has a very interesting post on a recent Classroom 2.0 LIVE conference in San Fransisco. According to the Classroom 2.0 LIVE site, they are planning 11 more of these conferences around the country throughout 2008. It's possible that they may come to Chicago in April.

I'll keep an eye on this to see if they schedule a date for Chicago. That might be an interesting end-of-semester trip for anyone in EDMT 592 that was interested in a few days in the Windy City.

College2

After seeing Buck's post about college2.ning.com, I decided to check the site out. I've now joined and will begin spending time to see what info I can pick up about how Web 2.0 apps are being used in higher ed. I'll make sure to report back.

My first YouTube Video

This is completely unrelated to EDMT 592, but I'm excited I've posted my first YouTube video. The video is a time lapse movie our church created to show how we transform a middle school gym into a "high tech" worship center every weekend.



Let me know what you think.

SL Experiences

I've had a blast exploring Second Life (SL) on my own and with our EDMT 592 class. In SL, you'll come to know me as Sterling Milena.

My first experience in SL was, like several of my classmates, a frustrating experience. After free-falling onto Orientation Island, I found myself awkwardly learning to move around. All in all, Orientation Island was worth the few hours I spent on it. Learning to walk, drive, touch, sit and change my avitar's look took some time, but was fun (especially for homework). My biggest frustration was that I could not figure out how to complete the "movement" section of the island. I learned later from someone else in SL that this was a known "bug" that SL is aware of.

The most interesting thing about my first few visits to SL was having several of my teenage children huddled around me while I was"doing my homework". They were fascinated that I was taking a course that required me to hang out online in what looked to them like a gaming environment. With them sitting by my side, it didn't take too long to discover why there is a separate SL for teens.

I also enjoyed the class interactions in SL. Especially after I got my headset working and was able to use voice chat. (Text chat was very tough to follow... especially with a crowd of us exploring things together.) I really liked flying together to another part of the island and honing my skills using the mini-map. Plus, flying is just cool.

The locations we visited were pretty incredible... the Sistine Chapel, NASA's island, the moon and a Shakespearean theatre. The chapel we visited was also intriguing to me, especially reading their signs about virtual services they hold there on a regular basis. I also spent time roaming around on my own at EduNation and on the University of Arizona's campus. Let me tell you, teleporting is certainly much easier that long plane rides!!

I just received my copy of "Second Life for Dummies" from amazon.com. I look forward to continuing to explore and learn about SL. It's going to be exciting trying to figure out how it can be incorporated into classroom experiences here at EMU.

Hey, it's my first post!

Hi everyone! Welcome to the first post to Ron Woody's Blog. An intriguing title to be sure.


I've created this blog for a graduate course I'm taking at Eastern Michigan University. It's a special topics course in the Educational Media and Technology (EDMT) graduate program called Virtual Worlds and Social Networks. Blogs are one component of online social networking we will investigate to determine how to effectively use them in education.


I'm having a good time in this course and look forward to using this blog to share my thoughts on the experiences we have.