Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/29842
left: Eeds finds students are more engaged when they use Web 2.0 tools like social networks. other more than the teacher.” His students say social networking makes them feel more connected to school — and each other. “We all talk to each other and help each Vacaville Teachers Association (VTA) member says she created the facebook.us template and put it on a shared drive be- cause she couldn’t afford to purchase a program intended for schools. Helping students stay connected Down the hall from Eeds is Spanish teacher Donald Lopez, a 25-year classroom veteran who admits that he was initially skeptical about social networking with his students. “TMI [too much information] at your fingertips can be a blessing and a curse,” says the VTA member. “But now I try and use social networking as much as possible. The kids buy into it, and it’s given me a second wind. It’s reinvigorated my teaching!” Lopez’s Advanced Placement (AP) classes have their own website for blogging and a discussion group called GASS, for Gramática Avanzada Super Sofistica, or Super Sophisticated Advanced Grammar. The site was created with School Loop, a website system available to K-12 public schools for free. Creating a social net- working site with a humorous name for students to communicate with one anoth- er in Spanish has increased their profi- ciency and created a sense of community, says Lopez proudly. “Through the School Loop site, my stu- dents have access to writing prompts for AP tests,” says Lopez. “They practice, share their writing and receive feedback from other students. They comment on each other’s grammar, writing styles and punctuation. Students become peer men- tors and show other students what good writing is. Sometimes kids listen to each other,” says Raul Lopez, a sophomore. “If someone does something wrong on an es- say we tell them how they can make it bet- ter or word it differently.” Grace Daniel, a senior, describes the social networking site as a “friendly at- mosphere” where students don’t have to worry about being judged harshly by their peers. But social networking among students is not always friendly, notes Jeff Russell, a sixth-grade English teacher at Marshall Middle School in San Diego. He discov- ered that two students were bullying oth- ers on a social networking site he set up to promote online discussions, “peer editing” of papers and writing exercises. When he found out, Russell tweaked the Schoology program to create a new category giving student offenders limited access: They could read and turn in assignments online, but no longer post comments to others — with the exception of posting comments to the teacher. “There is always temptation and the worry of distraction with social network- ing,” says Russell, who belongs to the San Diego Education Association. “Sometimes you have to pull students aside or send them private messages so they understand what’s appropriate — and what isn’t.” Overall, Russell believes, the benefits of left: Klarissa Ligon (left) and Jennifer Daugherty make a history project dynamic by using technology. 14 California Educator | APRIL 2011 social networking outweigh the problems, and he encourages teachers to set up on- line groups for the classes they teach. “I have had a lot of success in getting students to communicate with each other on group projects like creating wikis [web-