Thing 13

What applications appeal to you? Now that you know more about Twitter and Facebook, pay attention to where you hear references to them in the every day world. How do you think you might use these tools? Why do you think MySpace and other social networking sites are so popular with kids today? What safety tips would you share with your students who are talking about using social networks?

I really don't see or have ever heard of any applications on Facebook that appeal to me. Spending time with Farmville, Words with Friends, or Cityville, just doesn't make sense in my eyes.  I guess there was a time in my life that I used video games to escape from reality. Yet that was in high school and early in my college days.  When I get together with friends we usually don't play games, we visit and have meaningful conversation. So to play a game with someone over the internet just doesn't do it for me.  I play board games with my child and enjoy that immensely.   Just different with adults I guess for me.  

I hear references to Twitter and Facebook all over the place.  Magazines, TV shows, newspapers, websites, grocery stores...you name it.  Social Networking is here. Let's look at Justin Bieber...found on YouTube in 2008, used Twitter to tell fans what radio station he was going to be interviewed on.  Fans then would go to the radio station and demand they play his music.  In three years time the Bieber Social Networking Machine skyrocketed him to stardom and last year alone he grossed 55 million dollars.   This is the first real musical venture into social networking.  He has paved the way for future artists to use social media also. 

Reason for kids in today's age to be making social networking so popular?  Instant gratification.  They want it right now.  That is what SN is all about.  


Just as mentioned in Thing 5, elements of digital citizenship that I would discuss with the students would be Digital Security, Law and Etiquette.