Facebook/Myspace in the classroom

I may have a negative opinion about Facebook and Myspace in the classroom. I do personally use Facebook to communicate with friends and family but I feel neither Facebook or Myspace has a place in education. I get requests to befriend a student on one of these websites and I feel torn between my role as a educator. We have had teachers fired for using technology in this way while interacting with a student, so I always decline a request. I understand there are educators or role models that may misuse this type of communication outlet, but educators could use this as a positive also. There are numerous ways they could involved blogs, pictures, surveys and much more in their classrooms and make student eager to learn outside of school. But, sadly there are role models and educators that have abused this privilege and now make these technology outlets a common known fact teachers and students can not be friends on social networks for a number of reasons.
I am torn because some of these students need outlets such as these to communicate with their teachers or other classmates. Some students naturally are quiet and withdrawn, but when you put a keyboard in front of them they can express their self and blow a teacher mind with the insight they have underneath the surface of a sitting in a classroom. I also teach preventative lessons such as Suicide and Bullying prevention, I have had students try and reach me through technology, such as email, when they feel they can not talk to me at school. Facebook and Myspace do offer some benefits to educators when trying to communicate to students outside of the work day but also can get educators in trouble. Its a shame these type of technology advancements can't be brought into the classroom more.....but politics run the school good and bad so we have to make everyone happy even if our kids loss out on opportunities that if used appropriately could benefit them.

Emerging Technology Two: Survey

http://www.polldaddy.com/free/
http://surveys.polldaddy.com/s/BC30C1DED374D417/

I signed up for a free subscription to polldaddy.com. I have heard of teachers using this site and others like it to post questions students, parents and other staff members could respond to anonymously. I set up a sample survey over a lesson I teach in class, this topic is bullying prevention.
I use a variety of technology with this lesson such as , video and web cartoons, an episode of a popular talk show host, group and scenario short stories and films, and prevention propaganda created by students on the computer. So, adding a pretest survey for the students to answer would help enhance my lesson considerably.
The questions I focused on asking were ones I usually open up my lesson with to help students relate to the topic of bullying. Students are apprehensive about sharing their bullying experience, due to looking weak and being embarrassed. This survey allows them to answer the same questions I have asked in the past but they can answer the questions honestly, with more emotion and sharing. Once I have the results, I can use the data collected to share with students that everyone has been bullied, been a bully or watch bullying and not know how to assist themselves or others. I also allowed space to share experiences, locations and to ask for assistance if they do not have a trusted adult to turn to.
I see many positives for this site, it is controlled, anonymous, and also gathers useful information that can be visible for all to see, including parents and teachers to gain further understanding on how they can assist in the prevention of bullying in our schools. I would highly recommend this site to others in various fields.

Delicious Resources:

http://delicious.com/mbrunkhart

Above is the link to my delicious account. This is a wonderful way to access my bookmarks I use either on a daily or regular basis. This is a great way to share resources with my fellow teachers and fellow students in my class.
Feel free to suggest any resources you feel I could benefit from.

Module 3: Critical Thinking

http://mbrunkha.pbworks.com/

Wiki paper.

http://mbrunkha.pbworks.com/Article-One%3A-Accountability

This is a assessment and analysis of a article about accountability in the school system through scores on standardized tests. Sorry for the delay but I had misinterpreted instructions. I look forward to thoughts about my opinion.

Emerging Technologies 1: Teacher Tube

http://www.teachertube.com/
This resource is a web-based teacher resource, I feel it is a spin off from YouTube.com. This resource could be very resourceful for all teacher and all contents. I search FACS and found numerous video posts that I could use in my class room. I watch quite a few but found one particular that I want to use with my Sixth graders to help their transition into middle school. The video is published from Seventeen magazine, they asked various artists, actors, actresses, athlete's and models about their first day of school jitters. This video would help my sixth graders understand everyone, even famous people, felt nervous on their first day of school. This will help them relate to famous people first then I could open up a discussion in class to help students relate to other students. The transition into middle school can be scary and a hard adjustment, using technology along with other learning tools can help the students stay engaged and active in my discussions. I could transition into my first unit of study easily with the use of this video alone, not to mention others that I found useful.
Since this is a teacher based on-line tool I feel safe using the content, knowing I can trust the sources will be school appropriate for my class room. Some of the video quality is shaky but I think it would be nice for my students to see video made and posted by students doing similar content projects. I am not sure all the ligalities involved with posting my own but plan on checking with my school policies to see if I could post appropriate topic videos to enhance the FACS videos available. I feel my students would be excited to develop video projects, not only because they can show their class mates but also if they know it would be posted on line for other schools and teachers to use.