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Let me start this post out by saying that I love Facebook . I check and update Facebook daily. It has provided me with the opportunity to get in touch with people from high school, college, and law school that I otherwise would not have maintained relationships with due to our busy lives and families. But.... I have always been wary of keeping my personal Facebook life separate from my online professional life (like my Twitter page , my blog , my Podbean page , and email contact with parents and colleagues). The Webinar Well, I participated in a webinar yesterday that opened the door to the possiblity of using Facebook with my students in a safe, responsible, and efficient way. Click here to see my notes from the webinar . Benefits of Using Facebook With Students Why should we use Facebook to communicate with our students? Students (who must be 13 or older according to Facebook's user policy ) are already checking Facebook at least once per day. Although there are exceptions, they ...

I was looking for something fun to do with my high school classes today. After a little searching, and some help from my PLN on Twitter, I found this: Yes, that's right, you are seeing a woman harvesting spaghetti from a tree! The BBC broadcasted this story on April 1, 1957 as a joke . The kicker is that spaghetti was not a commonly consumed dish in the UK at the time. It was rare and considered a delicacy, so many had never given thought to how it is created. As a result, people all over the UK were fooled into believing that spaghetti does, in fact, grow on trees. Click here to see the short video new story that BBC aired that night. Further reading an investigation of the web page revealed some first-hand accounts of people who were fooled by the ruse. Here are two of my favorites: I remember it well, I was five at the time, and watched this with my dear old Dad. Mum was out for the night. We were taken in totally. Very pleased with ourselves that we knew how spaghetti was pro...

My graduate class and cohort are winding down. Our last in-class project was a reflection on the integration of Web 2.0 tools in our class and curriculum. This was a labor of love. I thought I would share my project with all of you. Part 1 : My presentation began with a 4 and a half minute video I created using Photostory. It is a statement of my pedagogy now that I have taken this class. While I was primarily focused on content before (with blogging and research integrated into my curriculum) I now feel that my responsibilities go beyond the history itself. Web 2.0 skills have become an essential part of my classes. Part 2 : I decided to aggregate some examples of student work into a single website . I pointed out a few of these projects as examples of the integration of a few Web 2.0 tools throughout the year. Part 3 : Since I wanted the presentation itself to be an example of Web 2.0 technology, I added a feedback page . My hope is that some, or maybe even all, of you will write you...