(Screen shot of my desktop)
Every once in a while, we get to see/hear about research about how much time students, employees and everybody else spends on social networking sites. Most of them talk about the time being wasted- unproductive time. For those of you not familiar..... Facebook (among others like my space, twitter) is the most popular social networking site in the United States. A similar portal owned by Google is whats popular among some South American countries and India- Orkut. I think I would be right in thinking that there was a period of reluctance to get into these social networking sites. When I finally broke that inertia to enter the social networking realm (which was just 4 years ago) what fascinated me most was the social connectivity. I got to meet (at least virtually) my friends from school and college after a very long time. That was a biggie to me. It was not until later that the negative sides of these social networking sites came to the fore. The issue of privacy and "who gets to see what" of your profile were issues that were debated about and lot of energy and resources spent. With all the latest lock down possibilities of ur profile, are we feeling a bit more secure in putting ourselves out there???It took a while, but yea, people did seize the opportunity and started to use these portals for professional networking also. Its probably here that 9th period would need mention. Professionals get to network- What do students get to do "productively "(apart from productively socializing)? 9th Period it seems is trying to transform social networking into academic networking so that students can study, and still socialize. Its still in its infancy, and probably will need a lot of tweaking before we see this as a great academic networking portal out there. UGA is one among 50 large universities that are currently testing 9th period. Even though I can see the potential advantage of connecting all students that have taken a class to help each other out, what worries me is how much of myself am I going to put out into vast numbers of students that I barely know. There are quite a few questions that need answer before we embrace this wholeheartedly.
I have tried playing around the site for sometime (with no great advancement), so I am interested to hear what others who have tested this have to say...Do I have to add all my facebook friends? Do I have to add all the classes that I have taken in my life? How are they going to connect all the people who have taken a class?
How much of an intrusion will this be to me, If I do add a class on 9th period.
Would it be worth the pain? you tell me :)
I believe that social networking and professional networking will one day merge. I know that when that time comes I will strongly consider maintain two separate profiles, one personal and one professional.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Derek - in fact, I think they are starting to merge some. Particularly on facebook, groups and organizations have pages of their own to update those who join. Businesses have pages to gain support and visibility. I have to say though, it does make me somewhat uncomfortable for them to be joining. While I am ok with adding a business page to my account, I dont necessarily want my job to have access to my page. We speak so frequently about our "personal" and "professional" selves... what happens to these concepts if we make social networking a place where these things converge?
ReplyDeleteI do see the attempt made by 9th period as something 'extra' that can aid class interaction which ultimately is hoped to increase learning among students. Again,the question comes if participation is not 'mandatory' will it happen? Keeping something 'extra' as mandatory also isn't right....
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