Having attended the Building Learning Communities conference two weeks ago, I've determined that, while I'm nominally in charge of technology at my school, I am terribly naive about social networking and what it means to my students. My experience with MySpace has been mostly attempts to see what our students are doing/saying on their pages. At the same time, our school blocks MySpace. I'm beginning to see a disconnect between what we (the school) teach, allow, and encourage and what our kids are experiencing every day.
MySpace provides a community for our kids that offers something we just haven't tried to understand. Well, my school is in for a surprise. We are going to try to understand the value of MySpace to our students and, perhaps, harness their enthusiasm for online communities by creating our own. Wish me luck!
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