Social Networking for students...uh oh...

Social Networking comes to education…at least for the kids.

Social Networking is basically sites where users build a community and share information. MySpace and Facebook are among the largest social networking communities and sites on the net. However, there are many other types of social networks. Several years ago someone started a site called Rate My Professors. It was a place where students could go and read about a professor they might want to take for a particular class.

When I was in college we did the same thing…only my circle of people to ask was relatively small. With a social networking site like this you can get the opinions of people you don’t even know but that might still have valuable information to share. I use Amazon the same way…I read people’s reviews of products I’m thinking of buying so why not review a professor. The site was so successful that it has spawned an offshoot call Rate My Teachers. Sites like this are causing concern in the educational community. The teacher's union in the UK is even asking lawmakers to review the law to see if it is even legal for these sites are legal and if teachers deserve any special protection.

Upon finding the Ratemyteacher site I had to see if Indian Hill was listed…..it certainly was at
http://www.ratemyteachers.com/schools/ohio/cincinnati/indian_hill_high_school

Fortunately the elementary students haven’t started their reviews yet, but the HS students certainly have. I'm sure it makes some people uncomfortable, but I don’t think a site like this needs to be banned as students have a right to their opinion….but it certainly does open up a whole can of worms in terms of privacy. Does someone have the right to publish information about you? RateMyTeacher does give a place for teachers to respond to postings, but how is a teacher even to know that something has even been said about them....good or bad.

If you do have a few minutes you might enjoy looking up some of your own college professors. The RateMyProfessors site even offers video segments called “Professors Strike Back” where professors can offer their own video rebuttal.

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com
http://www.ratemyteachers.com/

Ohio Treasure Chest of Resources

The Ohio Treasure Chest bills itself as “an online collection of thousands of websites which are high-quality, teacher-reviewed, interactive, and free. Each website is aligned directly to the Ohio Academic Content Standards in math, science, language arts, and social studies, and ready for use in your classroom.”

This site is maintained by Eric Curts of North Canton City Schools, home of the Vikings. I cannot imagine the number of hours Mr. Curts has put into this website over the years, but what a valuable resource for teachers.

What really works about this resources (besides its depth) is the way that it is organized. Mr. Curts has listed the indicators for each content area by grade level and then matched his websites to indicators. So if I am looking for a web activity to help me teach writing to 4th graders (specifically organizational strategies) I have 3 different sites that can help my students learn this indicator. What a great resource to have when you are looking for some resources to help teach a specific indicator. There is always Google….but why not start at the treasure chest first…Mr. Curts may have already done the work for you.

http://www.ohiotreasurechest.org/