When Facebook gets too scary...the Ning is the Thing!

It seems that everyone has a Facebook account these days. Well maybe not everyone, but according to the latest Wikipedia article Facebook has a staggering four hundred million registered users and My Space logged its one hundred millionth user way back in August of 2006. Clearly many folks are taking advantage of the social networking opportunities being offered. According to Will Richardson (2009, page 6) more than sixty percent of adolescents in the US are using social networking sites which is a figure that surpasses the use by educators.



Learning about the tools.

Facebook (FB) and Ning are the main tools that I explored this week. Although I opened an account on FB prior to this class, I have used it very little primarily to keep in touch with family and share photos and the “What’s happening this week” type of thing. I have had an FB account now for some time although I could not find a record of the date that I opened the account. I remember it being very easy to open an FB account. The truth is anyone who is over 13 years of age and has a valid email account is welcome to open an account on FB. Finding and adding friends is the cornerstone of Facebook. Davies and Merchant (2009 page 16) say that establishing and maintainingconnections between participants is the salient feature of social networking sites. To establish these relationshipsis a quick (usually) and easy process. The snag to the quickness is that if the friend you are trying to find has a very common name you may end up searching through many similarly named people to find who you are looking for. This problem is compounded as many people do not show a photograph on their profile page unless you are already a friend making identification very difficult. Add to this the fact that they may not even be a registered member of the group and the search may be in vain. This happened with two people I tried to locate this week.

Once establishing a group of friends their information will appear on your “feed” and this will keep you up to date with them.

Unlike other web 2.0 sites that I have explored FB doesn’t have an affinity that links the members together such as the photos in Flickr or the videos on YouTube but rather you are "mapping' the set of connections that everyone has in real life.'" (Davies & Merchant 2009) page16 In FB you choose who you are connected to (or they choose you with your permission!) Once a member with a list of friends you can update your own profile by adding text to the "What's on your mind" box which is very much like a Twitter feed.

There are many ways to waste time on Facebook including numerous games. I have not played any of these games, but often would receive “updates” and “invites” to games from people who are my FB “friends.” One of the best things that I learned about FB is that you can “hide” any of these updates which remove some of the clutter on the feed.

I do not belong to any groups although I just discovered that we have a group on FB for this class…did I miss something? I have requested to be added as a member…

I also recently discovered that FB lists all of the birthdays of my friends by the month…no more excuses for missed birthdays…I did wonder why I got birthday wishes from people on FB…now I know!


FB also suggests friends to add based on friends of friends ( a good example of the Common Craft video!) The site will tell me how many mutual friends |I have with the suggested person. FB also prompts me to send friends a message or “poke” them…I really think many of these features are a waste of my time as I really only want to share some photos and keep in touch with a few friend and family members…speaking of which the younger members of my family and my friends children all seem to have most of the four hundred million people listed as their friends! Well no…not actually but my nephew has over three hundred and my friend’s daughter has two hundred sixty-five…this number is down significantly from the six hundred and fifty-eight she had when her father entered the fray and limited her participation…she also had the security settings completely off so anyone could see her information…

For many of the reasons outlined above I prefer Nings. They are like FB but better…at least better for the education system as a teacher, school or district can have all the advantages of Social networking without the risk of being completely public.

I recently joined the Ning for Comox Valley Teachers. The advantages of Nings are that they are subject to approval for membership…this prevents many of the pitfalls I see with the commercial social networking sites such as FB. There are privacy setting on FB that allow users to limit who sees what information and this is automatically set for account holders registered as being ages thirteen to fifteen for their protection.

Tools In Terms of My Personal Learning

FB is not for me for my personal learning…the opposite is true for the various Nings that I belong to. FB is used for personal communication with family and friends and now that I am able to limit the amount of SPAM in FB by using the “hide” button it is more streamlined for this purpose. As a parent I would certainly be aware of and try to communicate openly with my children regarding their use of any social networking site like FB. I am not sure that most of the friends on many people's lists are truly friends that they have a real relationship with as suggested by the founder of Facebook Zuckerman (Davies & Merchant 2009 page 16)

Unlike FB the Comox Valley teachers Ning and other Nings that
I belong to (Classroom 2.0 for one) have limited application for personal learning but I use them more for professional learning.

Tools in Terms of Professional Learning

The Nings are great for education as they remove the threat of inadvertent or inappropriate content or contact as they are by membership only. Kevin P. Brady (2010) alerts school adminstrators to the use of both Elgg and Ning which "have been developed specifically for the education community while simultaneously addressing safety concerns voiced by school leaders." The possibility of a good social network exists, but within the guidelines of the administrator of the Ning. There are many different Nings available and I have recently become a member of one focused on our school district as well as one that focuses on history and social studies. Each of these contributes to my professional life through collaboration with other educators in the same field as me.

An important aspect of social networking sites was the divide apparent between educators (specifically adminstrators) and the views of parents and students. According to Brady (2010) "more than half of the education leaders wanted to prohibit the use of social networking sites in their schools, a majority of the parents and students expressed high expectations about the positive role social networking technologies could play in students' lives." As a professional educator I can see that this divide needs to be closed as the some of the effects on students  "include Internet learning, tutoring, time management, career exploration, peer support, stress, cheating, frustration, boredom, student responsibilities, dress code, and cyberbullying." (Strom et al 2010)

If students are "puzzled by the fact that teachers seldom employ the Internet to motivate them or to improve their capability for self-direction" as described by Strom then we as educators need to address the use of social networking in schools and as Brady suggests lift the limits that have been set on these sites in education to more fully engage our students in the digital (arguably their) world!

Aside from the student needs there are also institutional needs. According to Meredith Farkas institutions  need to create terms of use agreements for their employees to ensure that they are not being misrepresented on social networking sites as she sees the "blurring online of the divisions between professional and personal can impact organizations." (Farkas 2009) Farkas goes on to suggest that "you may also want to think about how your library represents itself online. The best way to promote and protect your brand is to have a strong presence and consistent message in the spaces your patrons frequent."

So engaging students as well as protecting both students and the reputation of your instiitution become professional concerns that need to be addressed when contemplating social networking sites. And remember when Facebook gets too scary...the Ning is the thing!


References

Brady, K.. (2010, February). Lifting the Limits on Social Networking Sites. School Administrator, 67(2), 8. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1950191201).

Davies, J., & Merchant G. (2009). Web 2.0 for Schools: Learning and Social Participation. New York: Peter Lang.

Farkas, M.. (2009, December). Governing Social Media. American Libraries, 40(12), 35. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1919602251).

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other PowerfulWeb Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press.

Strom, P., Strom, R., Wing, C., & Beckert, T.. (2010, February). Adolescent Learning and the Internet. The Education Digest, 75(6), 10-16. Retrieved March 19, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1938473731).