My week of using Facebook for research. This is what I learned...

According to my Timeline, I joined Facebook on October 18, 2008. It’s been an interesting 3.5 years. During that time, I met a lot of new people who shared my interests and re-connected with family and friends with whom I had lost contact. I was especially happy when I found my dad’s family in the Scranton, PA area. My dad passed away in 2006 and once my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she was no longer able to keep in touch with family the way she used to. I have to admit, however, that I don’t use the apps on Facebook very much. It was interesting and fun to give some new ones a try this week. These are the ones I chose to review:

Words with Friends-

This is a crossword game- a great way to build vocabulary and challenge your friends to do the same. You can get a classroom word challenge going with either individuals or teams (say two classrooms in the same grade compete). The first person who plays sends a challenge or a game request to someone and they play and send a challenge to the next person. I have just begun to play this game but my friends who do play it, say that it is fun, educational, and a great way to connect with people and use your brain at the same time.

Spotify- music. This is a site where you can listen to music and share tracks with your friends. I thought something like this might be helpful in music classes. A piece of music from any genre can be chosen and shared with the class via Facebook. It can then be discussed either in class or online. The selection of Original Cast Broadway recordings that I viewed was quite expansive and would be a great help to someone who was auditioning for a role in a school play, community or professional theatre.

Pinterest- Many of my friends enjoy this app so I was very anxious to try it. However, doing so necessitated the dreaded changeover to the Timeline format. I wasn’t crazy about the idea but went ahead and finally took the plunge. So far I have been pleased with the way the Timeline looks and what posts came up on it.

Pinterest is very interesting. You create your own “pin boards” with pictures of the things you are interested in. It is similar to Glogster in that respect. I can see uses for this app in a classroom setting. Students can create pin boards around a specific theme such a science or history. You can even design a pin board of things that represent you. When you first sign up on Pinterest, you are given suggestions of topics that may be of interest to you and then you are able to view sample pin boards done by professionals.

Sound Cloud- This is an app that enables you to record sounds, music, or podcasts to share with your friends. I can see the uses for this in education. A teacher can have students’ record podcasts on almost any subject and they can be shared within a network of students who can follow them. You have the ability to “see” the sound wave pattern of whatever sound you decide to record which is neat. This feature may be useful in science classes as well.

A friend of mine, who has written a book about her son’s struggle with schizophrenia, has recorded several educational podcasts using this app.

As a preschool and kindergarten teacher, I would like to see an app developed where I could find educational games and activities suitable for children and share them with a community of other teachers. This might be similar to the Circle of Moms app that I subscribe to. There you can connect with other moms to share your children’s’ milestones and share parenting tips. I joined a page called Preschool Teachers Talk, but I would like to see something developed further from that idea. Our kids are too young to actually have Facebook pages but it might be nice to have apps where games could exist for kids in that age range to play with parental supervision, similar to the apps that Starfall learning and other companies have developed for the I Pad and android tablets. The downside to this, of course, is that the kids may be getting an exposure to social networking too early in life. However, as our children’s first teachers, parents may be the best ones to show their children the proper way to harness the power of social networking.