Teachers and Students friends on Facebook?

This is not based on any reading, but rather on stories I hear on TV and the radio. It seems to be a growing trend that teachers are becoming friends with their students on facebook. I am just wondering what other people think about this. I believe that it is giving the students too much of a look inside my personal life. I am able to control what I post, but not what my friends post and I don't think it is my place to expose my students to whatever someone else feels is appropriate. I also believe you are setting yourself up for possible trouble down the road if a student wants to accuse you of saying or doing something that you didn't do or say! What do you think?

Using Facebook in the Classroom?

Has anyone tried this yet? I teach 5th grade so I probably will never attempt it and I never thought it was a good idea until I read an article on the website emergingedtech.com. This article is told from a high schooler's perspective. The student was reflecting on how he liked that his teacher used facebook as a reader's response log. The students would join the group and then post their responses to the reading on facebook. My first thought was that the teacher could use blackboard or moodle in the same way so why use facebook. This was also brought up in the article and the student felt that students were more engaged because they love being on facebook anyway and they already know how to use it so well! Since it was a group created for the class there was a "wall" between this class and the social aspect of facebook. I liked this article last night, because I was just thinking that someone should create a facebook for schools so teachers can use it in their classrooms. I think that kids would love it.

New Educational Website

I found a new educational website that I find really interesting and helpful. It is called Emerging ed tech. It can be found at emergingedtech.com. the reason I really like it is because it is a combination of articles and blogs written be people from the educational field. There are also a lot of links within articles. For example if you are reading an article about twitter, within the article there are links that lead you to "how to" videos on using twitter.

Writers Workshop

How many out there use writers workshop? I started using it last year in my 5th grade classroom and I love it. I am also using readers workshop in my classroom now and the two are an amazing compliment to each other! I finally feel like I am teaching writing and not just assigning things for my students to write! It has been a tough transition and there are still many management things that I am working through like conferencing, but I think it is well worth it.

Another Edutopia Article

I really like the site Edutopia. It has very interesting ideas and thoughts from people all over the education field.
The article I just read was by Dr. Katie Klinger. The Article is called "An Effective Diagnostic Tool, Does AYP Measure Up?" She brings up the topic of AYP and whether or not it is working the way it should to reach all students. The part of the article that I was interested in was near the end when she proposed that teachers be certified more specifically for grade levels. Like K-3, 4-8 and so on. She believes that each level has specific needs, whether it is more literacy based in lower grades or socially and transitionally based in middle school because of the changes from Elementary to Middle school.
I thought this was an interesting idea and one that sound logical to me. I have long believed that schools themselves should be split up K-2 and 3-5 in different buildings or at least following a different schedule. I sat on our district's scheduling committee a few years ago and we learned that there was no good way to make a schedule that is good for all students, K-5. If we could have split them up into lower and upper schools then we could have done some amazing things with the schedules that would have met the needs of the students much better.

National "core standards"

At a meeting the other day at my school we were given the new core standards. These will now replace our GLCEs. Has anyone else received theirs yet? I have not looked at them very closely, but they seem to be easier to follow and more streamlined. I am not sure how I feel about national standards yet. I remember this was a topic in our last class and we discussed it. I guess that I did not realize it was a done deal at the time! Just wondering if anyone else has seen them yet and what your thoughts are.

Week 1 Blog - Helping Students Use Social Networks Appropriately

I read a very interesting and timely article today on edutopia. It is called " How to Help Students Use Social Media Effectively". It was written by Andrew Marcinek. You can find the article on my RSS feed. The article discusses the fact that there are so many ways for students to share their thoughts and ideas that we as teachers need to use this opportunity to teach them to communicate effectively. The article says that eventhough we are using technology we should still pay attention to spelling and grammar. I agree and think this is very true. If this is modern day writing we still want to teach it correctly and not accept spelling errors and grammar mistakes all over the place! We all come across many little mistakes in blogs, tweets, etc. that we are letting them slip by and they are becoming more and more common and accepted. As Marcinek says, " If we want to maintain the sanctity of the English language" we need to hold students and professionals accountable for the way they convey their messages.