almost eighteen with an angel face

that is a song by Roy Orbison, for those curious peeps.

myspace....oh, how wonderfully addictive!  I love myspace for the blogging.  You can find me at myspace.com/laurenmeals  Of course, for eighty billion reasons I have a private account.  I am hooked for the blogging, although I am becoming more and more tempted to move my personal blogs to blogspot or wordpress... Maybe over the summer.  Myspace went from a great blogging to the number one way to get a hold of me, seriously, I check it more than my voicemail (like 20x more).  

Teachers should be familiar with social networking sights for a very key reason- checking up on your kiddos.  This is not as a gotcha- you were skipping thing.  Rather, it's a very good way to develop that personal relationship (the fact that you care enough about them to find out and understand more about their personal life is a big gesture of interest) and also clue you in on something that maybe just isn't right with Jenny or Joey.  For whatever weird reason, students hate to tell their teacher what's going on, but have no problem putting it on the internet for every one and their mama to see.  

Additionally, using social networking to reach your students really increases the likelihood that students will do independent learning.  If I put up something on my blog that one student find interesting, he is going to message me and ask more about it (which allows me to find something that interests him to use in class- woot woot!) or he may google it for more info.  If he googles it, he is finding things out for himself and they may stick longer.  One tiny thing I put on my page has the ability to exponentially increase a student's knowledge, engagement, and skill levels.  Thus, Social Networking is also, "Brilliant!"