The Social Web

I must say that the social part of the web it the part I fear the most. At the present time, I feel that I am so overextended I could not possibly commit to any new social site. I have been an active member of facebook since 2005, and if I don't post on there for an extended amount of time, my friends, and even my mother will think I am dead. I fear twitter. My husband keeps up with both facebook and twitter, and I don't know how he does it. He got so excited when the CEO of his company started following him on twitter.

While I see how twitter could be used in the classroom, I disagree that students should be encouraged to use twitter from their phones. This is not a culturally sensitive teaching method. Should we just explain to those students whose parents cannot afford for them to have cell phones, that they may not participate. As a parent I don't believe teachers should be deciding for us when our children should have cell phones. I had a cell phone when I could pay for it myself with a part time job. Granted my husband and I may not follow the exact same practise if we can afford phones for our sons when they are in high school. I would not feel comfortable putting pressure on my students parents to allow them to have cell phones before the family feels it appropriate, and I certainly don't want to place extra social pressure on these students.