Online Social Networking

Online social networking is website driven internet communities that all users to communicate with each other, often about a common interest. Through these environments, users “chat” through message boards, e-mail, etc. The practice of this networking was most commonly seen through online communities such as MySpace and Facebook. Communities such as these tend to take away from the professional and educational aspects of online networking.
The benefits from using the internet as a networking tool could ultimately out weigh the cons we see. With proper privacy regulations, schools could use this to their advantage. The biggest risk we see in the misuse by bloggers who use the internet in a non-professional manner. With the right education on internet ethics and morals, the uses may become much more educational. By creating boundaries, misconduct becomes deterred. There are many resources that offer safe networking tools, such as Ongaurd (http://www.ongaurdonline.gov/, 2007), which is a government based website that offers parents tools to making internet use safer for their children. Such uses have been practiced in the business and medical field for years, and writers, such as Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams (2006), show the benefits and success of implementing internet based networking for companies. Within this book, we also see the uses of you tube and other web organizations that benefit these companies and how. With its’ application being successful within these fields, it could be a positive contribution to school rooms. I can’t help but imagine learning Spanish from students and teachers in Spain will someday be a classroom reality. The internet and its’ communication tools offer school outside of the classroom, which appeals to many students. Schools definitely need to implement its’ use.
In reading the assigned chapters, it makes it evident that there is no excuse why somebody would not be able to apply online networking to schooling. Within these chapters, every step you need to take to use electronic networking is present, and the most effective, chapter 11, offers a look into how to use this networking process to create collaborations. What I mean when I say this is, not only can students learn from using the internet for educational means, but they also learn the “science” behind how to create an online forum for education. More specifically, it becomes most interesting when students can offer their pages as an e-learning experience through opinion based polls. Through this, they offer a question and response area, causing students to think and react based on their personal and educated ideas. How could a forum such as this not be beneficial to students?

References

Tapscott, D., & Anthony Williams, (2006). Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything. New York: Portfolio.

Oram, A. (2004, April 5). Online Transactions. Message posted to http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2004/04/an_experiment_with_online_soci.html