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I believe that Social Media is an important tool. I, myself, use it quite often, and I am quite sure that my students do, too. Unfortunately, there are two problems with using this for teaching. The first problem is simply warnings from our union, etc. not to let students communicate with us via these methods because some things that we might share with our close friends and family, should not be common knowledge for our student bodies. Sometimes these ways of communicating have been used as evidence to support false claims against teachers. Well, my solution was to make a separate facebook account specifically for my students. I was going to call it Mr. Groetz, without even using my first name, but facebook wouldn't accept that or any variation of that. So, I used my building name as my first name, and now, I have a facebook page for student use called Lehman Groetz. The second problem is to find more uses for it. I mean sure I could put announcements of assignments or upcoming test dates, maybe even post pictures from class, but I need to truly come up with real effective uses for this tool. I hope this class assists me in doing this. Student opinions are definitely important to our teaching. This week, I tried out a new form of having the kids use technology in my teaching. It was basic and simple, but It was a start. Instead, of teaching the reasons that led to the American Revolution, I posed a challenge to my students. We went to the computer lab, and they had to find five causes of the American Revolution. Then, they had to e-mail me with their answers, which had to include at least two sites as sources. We spoke about how to use search engines and which sites were credible and which ones weren't. In essence, I believe that I was able to do what's at the core of this course, not only teaching my subject matter, but teaching how to use technology, while I'm at it. Hopefully, this will create understanding for the students' every-day lives. Most importantly, as I mentioned before, was the student feedback about their opinions. They really appreciated that assignment. They liked using the computers, internet, and e-mail accounts. I appreciated the fact that I did not have to worry about everyone bringing the proper things to class (ie. pencils, paper, textbook, etc.). We didn't need that old fashioned stuff. The students and I also appreciated the speed at which they could turn things into me and get feedback back to them, so quickly. It was a good start for my students and I changing to what the course is trying to teach us. I am excited to se where this takes us from here.

Great start...I agree that you have to use the tools available and appropriate for your task. Student do love it when they can apply their real life tools to school tasks more efficiently! I also hope this course provides you with exposure to more tools that can be used in the classroom. These wikis are great for students to collaborate on a topic....try that out! :) Cheryl