Right along with bullying and Common Core, Social media is a hot topic in education right now. I won't go into and rehash much of what has been already written, but I will direct you to some awesome blog posts and articles along the way.
Personally, I've been a Facebook addict for years. I don't often post much, but trust me, if you are my friend, I am stalking you. I've joined and been added to several educational/teacher group pages. Many are deemed private, to protect the members of the group and give them a safe place to communicate with others. I find these pages a blessing and a curse. While many times there are teachers posting questions seeking advise that I find is an excellent use of the page, most are just using it as an open forum to gripe. Now, I fully understand the cathartic values of a well placed gripe session. But sometimes I feel like people take it as a contest to see who has the worst school, colleges, parents, administration, and state government. That being said, if you'd like to collaborate w/ educators on Facebook stick to the open pages (not private) and many companies pages offer great collaboration as well. I'm a big fan of Really Good Stuff's page (and their catalogue and products). Several friends and colleges also created "teacher" accounts. Allowing for their students to connect with them on the site, but not their personal pages.
Over the past year I've become more of a fan of Twitter. Both personally, to stalk celebrities, authors, and athletes, and professionally, to stalk award winning teachers, practitioners, and presenters. Again, I don't post much, and haven't quite grasped all the lingo and how to knowledge that goes into twitter, but I do retweet posts quite often. As you can see here ----->
Also, twitter gives you only gives you 140 characters to get your message across. So, right there the gripe session is reduced.
What I love about twitter is I can be directed to great articles, blog posts, and interactive websites recommended and written by educators. Connect with professionals who have similar job descriptions, and keep on top of educational topics in a more concise and convenient manner. Twitter is also where you need to be to connect with teen students now. Teens are leaving Facebook in droves. Oh they still have an active page. But, when your grandma friends you, it's no longer the cool place to be.
For more info on Twitter and education...Check these sites below!
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb10/vol67/num05/Why-Teachers-Should-Try-Twitter.aspx
http://www.schrockguide.net/twitter-for-teachers.html
http://rossieronline.usc.edu/twitter-for-teachers/
Find teachers to connect with here:
http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/w/page/22554534/FrontPage
