CS3: Social Networks 101

In the last year Social (online) Networks have grown enormously in popularity with students around the world ... but these have not yet been adopted or used by many schools. In fact quite a number of schools around the world have blocked access on the school network to some of the social network websites like, 'myspace' and 'facebook'.

In this session we will look at what a social network site is and see some examples and discuss the pros and cons for a school community. We will also look at some ways of setting up your own social network for use with your class, school, or club .... or even outside work for your own family. (although you have probably alreayd used Ning as one of the organisational tools of the conference itself.

Finally in this session (time allowing) we will look at Second Life, a 3D virtual environment that is being considered as a possible tool to support teaching and learning, already half of UK Universities have a presence in S.L.

One of the outcomes of this session is that you may well pick up ideas for your own presentation back at school .... if presenting to colleagues on this topic in the future.

If you time before the session then have a look at the pages
www.shambles.net/pages/learning/infolit/socialnet
and
www.shambles.net/pages/learning/ict/secondlife

and some of the videos at
http://socialnetworksvideos.blogspot.com/
and
http://virtualenvironmentvideos.blogspot.com/

also you may like to listen to the Podcast from David Elliott, Hong Kong International School, who have embraced Facebook and Youtube www.shambles.net/podcasting

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