Too much of a good (mediocre) thing

It was only about a year and a half ago that I took the plunge and set up a Facebook page. Then this year, I took yet another step and established a twitter page. Since then I have been looking into and singing up for other social media site. As I delve deeper into social media, what I have realized is that it is all overwhelming. For every service, it is a yet another account with yet another log-in and yet another network of streams and streams of e-conversations. How in the world is a person supposed to be able to keep up with this information overload. And, how is a person supposed to be able to sort through the droves of what every human being on the planet finds of personal interest. No matter how specific the network it still seems like a brain dump. I have found that the more networks that I join, the fewer that I pay attention to at all. So instead of spreading out to more social media networks, I have decided to constrict my usage back to the initial two - Facebook and Twitter. Even these have lost some of their edge for me. It seems troubling that in today's day and age everyone under the sun can have a public forum whether they have something intelligent or interesting to say or not... including this blog. I apologize in advance for any time that I have wasted for my readers - three minutes better spent on planting strawberries.

The context where I can see value is when the network is so small that a very specific framework can be laid out for usage with a particular goal in mind. One such example would be a classroom setting. A tool such as Edmodo could be a great platform by which to engage students outside of the classroom. Classroom notes, texts, and even videos could be posted to a class network. Classroom conversations can be continued online and students could ask questions to the network. HW and test dates could be posted to the calendar and assignments can be posted as well. When the network is a class, the use of a tool such as Edmodo can actually benefit student growth by expanding the classroom beyond the 45 minutes during which a teacher sees students in class. It also provides a space in which to help students organize classroom work.

So although I would not suggest becoming a follower of this blog, I would encourage teachers to try out social media platforms for the classrooms.