Last week, I introducted the 6th grade to our internal social network creatively entitled, The Social Network. This is the fifth year we've used an in-house solution powered by Elgg. We archive the previous year's work, upgrade to the latest version of Elgg, and start with a new blank space every year. Not only does this free the server manager from the drudgery of importing the old stuff onto a new system, it reinforces that a social network is only as valuable as the information its users freely include and share. As Don Buckley, the Director of Innovation at The School at Columbia University, will tell you, a social network is populated with the following information: Who are you? Who are your friends? What do you do?

The 6th graders were really excited to join in, and we had a pretty great 30-minute discussion about appropriate information to include in a digital profile and how to behave online, especially in light of the fact that The Social Network is part of our academic suite of tools. I reminded them that they were too young to legally have a profile on Facebook, but I discussed in detail things I found inappropriate. I don't just judge; I tell them that I judge. I reminded them that they should carefully consider their actions in the virtual and the physical worlds, as it all goes towards building their character and their perceived character. I also gave them examples of kids and adults behaving badly online. [Usually I mention this sexting story when I talk about how everything online is public, permanent, and traceable: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sexting.html?_r=2]

Today, I was pretty annoyed and surprised when I found out from two different teachers that kids were creating private groups on The Social Network and personally inviting certain kids while gleefully excluding others. Or, maybe I'm just offended that they didn't include me in a group formed "for pretty and popular kids ONLY!!!" So, this afternoon, I gathered the 6th grade together and told them I was disappointed and surprised that within a week of joining this shared digital space, they were already making unfortunate choices.

I reminded them that in the real world I would never have middle school "friends" on Facebook and that shouldn't even think about trying to connect with me online until they can legally vote. But, here at The School, they should freely connect with their classmates and teachers. Outside of school, they are plenty of ways to ostracize based on gender, religion, race, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status. Inside these walls, we should embrace our community and seek ways to learn, collaborate, and use the technology academically, respectfully, responsibly. I also reinforced that it is ok to have private groups, but there should be a purpose besides being solely exclusive.

The kids came up with pretty great examples of acceptable private groups - grade level groups, class groups, homeroom groups, and maybe creative writing groups where you would want to share your work with a select group of peer editors. I asked them to consult a teacher before creating a private group. I reminded them that they should actively consult a teacher for most things, just like I do with Don.

The kids arrived last week. Since then, I've been trying to schedule time with the 5th-8th grade classes to get them started on setting up a GoogleSite as a super simple space for their digital portfolios.

Before the first day of school, the other instructional technologists and I decided to have kids set up a GoogleSite that they could presumably start in 3rd grade and add to each year until they leave in 8th grade...or when the technology changes. (I managed to last one year using iWeb until I declared it was dead to me.)

This was my plan with the kids after our talk:

1. Create a new GoogleSite and name it their server name. Anticipating they'll use these sites for consecutive years, we decided on a naming convention that will never change during their time at The School, like their username - mine is kblumberg.

2. Rename the Home page to About Me or About Karen or whatever their name is. Then they inserted an image taken with Photobooth and a brief autobiographical description about themselves - like a mini digital profile. I reminded them they could edit this endlessly from any location. We love The Cloud!

3. Create a new page, choose the Announcements template, put it at the top level, and call it 2011-2012. Belatedly, I realized they maybe could have called it "5th grade work" or something more specific, but it's not the end of the world. Next year's work will be on another new page (using the same announcements template) and titled 2012-2013.

4. Posts should include the subject first, like English R+J Podcast or Art Mosaic or SS Artifact Jars. Turns out posts are listed alphabetically rather than chronologically in the Sidebar on the left of the site, so I like that they can be organized by subject this way.

5. New Posts should contain an artifact like a link, photo, video, music file, slideshow, and/or something visual. They should put that artifact in context by using some sentence starters like the following: What is the artifact? What subject is it? What does it represent? Why did they choose it? What was the process? What was the most challenging part? What did they enjoy the most?

Here's my example: https://sites.google.com/a/theschool.columbia.edu/kblumberg/home

I'll be presenting online Saturday evening (2/5 at 6:00 pm EST) as part of the free Connecting Online 2011 Conference (#CO11). My specific session will be "Social Networking and Literacy," and I am going to describe how two of the English teachers at The School at Columbia University are using new media to enhance an independent reading program and book groups.

 

The Independent Reading Site (Google Site)

Marisa Guastaferro (6th Grade English) and I created The Independent Reading Site two years ago. It is a Google Site; Hence, it is free, there is a whole suite of tools, it is accessible from anywhere, there is a built-in search feature, kids can comment on each other's reviews, it is user friendly, and it is sustainable in that their profile travels with them from year to year.

In their profile, the students include what they read, where they read, how they read, and then list their favorite books, genres, and/or authors. These profiles are grouped by the year the students graduate from high school (this is how we list them in all of our databases anyway). The students create a sub-page for each book review they complete and create their book reviews in the form of text, video, audio, slide-show, or comic-strip. Students and teachers extend the conversation and share opinions in the comment section below each review.

The built-in Google Site search feature is awesome, as it allows users to search by name, year, genre, author, title, etc. This is invaluable and allows students to learn about other people's reading habits and locate new books to add to their bookshelf.

To Kill a Mockingbird Book Groups (Elgg social network)

Eve Becker (8th Grade English) carefully considered how to best negotiate our in-house social network (powered by Elgg) to structure teacher-led and student-led discussions for To Kill a Mockingbird. [The book celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010!]

First, Eve divided her students into small reading groups of 3-4 students. All students were required to join the TKAM grade-wide group created by Eve. Here, Eve listed description of responsibilities for the groups and offered a weekly teacher-led discussion question. The students formed their own private groups on The Social Network and invited Eve (and sometimes me) to join their closed space.

On their group page, students addressed Eve's weekly question, posted and responded to their own questions and comments inspired by the book, and maintained two pages: Quotations and Vocabulary. On the Quotations page, students took turns choosing and posting a quotation and an explanation about why it was chosen. On the Vocabulary page, students were required to write the word, an educated guess at its meaning, its part of speech, the actual definition, and an original sentence with the word.

Using Google Sites and Elgg for these projects meant that students were working in the cloud and could access their work from any location at any hour. Also, anytime they posted to their profile or to a group page, there was a time-stamp included that tracked who posted what and when. So, students are held accountable for their own work when working independently and/or within a small learning group. Win-win.