I am a member of some online communities. I have mentioned Facebook before (and wrote a whole post about it) but I also have a Flickr account, this blog, and a Yahoo account. There are probably others that I am not aware or are simply forgetting; these are the ones that first come to mind. I use Facebook and Yahoo on a daily basic, Flickr rarely, and this blog when I have time to post a new thing. I do try to read other students' blogs when I have time to get as much out of this project as I can. People might not think of Yahoo has an online community but there are so many applications and programs that Yahoo has. The one I use some times is Yahoo Answers. It is a forum for people to ask questions no matter how practical or important they are but there is a sense of community. People can be open, honest, and help each other out, even if they don't actually know each other. It can be nice and beneficial to seek advice from people who do not know you because they will have unbiased opinions. Questions are categorized to make communication of ideas easier. I used to get on Yahoo answers all the time and now I just use it as a way to keep me from getting bored every once in a while. It is still one of the online communities I take part in.
The social networks that appealed to me from the list provided were those that involved music and books (my two biggest passions). I already knew about IMBD because I use it regularly. It is great being able to look up the cast for a movie and see what other productions actors/actresses have played in. It makes it so much easier to find and watch films that my favorite Hollywood stars have done and TV shows they have guessed starred in. I love this site because of how quick and reliable the information is. They also have short bios that I like to read. The other two sites I played around with and really got interested in are Project Playlist and Shelfari. The first is very much like Pandora, except there are no commercials. However, with that said, the advantage Pandora has is that it lets you create stations that will play new songs as well as older ones. I liked exploring this network and the fact that you can follow other people's stations. I just do not see myself using it much in the future.
I will use Shelfari later on. I got sucked into the world of books and sharing them with others. I started adding books to my shelf and I could not stop...I looked up all my favorite books and wrote reviews for them. I like that this also lets you follow other people and you can connect to people that you do know through Facebook, Twitter, etc. Shelfari allows you to create a list of books you have read, plan to read, and ones you are currently reading. This is a great way to keep track of books I want to read and I am very glad I found this network. There are groups you can join that relate to your favorite genres. I also loved that this goes through Amazon.com so I did not have to sign up for something new and I do use amazon all the time. I highly recommend this to book lovers like myself!
I sign up for TeacherPop and posted some pictures, creating an album I titled "Important People" because they are people who have made me who I am and that I could not image life without. At some point in the future I may add pictures of other people that have had such a large impact on my life...this was just getting started. I also commented on my album explaining why those particular people where significant in my life. I also left a comment on the main page about how I thought TeacherPop is going to be helpful in my professional life and that it is nice to be a part of a community like that. One thing I really liked about this site is that it has a guide for using Facebook as a teacher. It will most certainly come in handy in the future, seeing as how social networking is so popular and only going to continue to gain people's interests. Everyone who is going to be a teacher should look at this document.
I see that these networks can be of great use to educations. They are great ways to share ideas, communicate, and learn.
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