How will I implement Bebo as a E-learning tool?

How will I implement Bebo into my classroom to enable my students to develop skills in communication via the internet?

Next year I will be venturing into my own classroom with an entire class of children that won't know me for a bar of soap and may or may not have had contact with each other in past classes. I will need to find a way to get my class connected and create a safe supportive community atmoshpere.. but how will I do this? Yes I will definately provide opportunities for children to get to know each other through games and group work within the classroom, but what about outside the classroom? how will I facilitate opportunities for my class to communicate with each other, when they are on holiday? or at home stuck on a homework task??

I know...I could create an online community where students can share ideas, learn from one another or simply conversate about their weekend!!!

I'l have to make sure the the social networker I use is child safe, meaningful to their age group, potentially educational and most of all fun!

The answer.... Bebo!

At the start of my year I could provide children with the opportunity to set up their own Bebo page in the computer suite, so that they can communicate outside of the classroom as well as in, I feel this will promote the children to get to know each other and tap into one anothers interests, ideas and understandings.

Of course there are issues with this, for example some children do not have the internet at home. Fortunately for those children a majority of libraries are equipped with the internet therefore children could spend quality time with their family by going to the library, surfing the net and even getting out a few books while they are there!
Another issue we face with this idea of incorperating Bebo into educating with communication is schools banning Bebo.

Studies show that over 200 schools in New Zealand alone have already banned social networker websites as they are viewed as time wasters and unsafe. http://mashable.com/2007/05/27/bebo-banned-new-zealand-schools/. This is why I feel that teachers need to be educating students on how to use Bebo safely and to their advantage both educationally and socially. Bebo can be unsafe and a time waster if it isn't used correctly, but if it is... the possiblities and development of skills such as communication, are phenominal!

Although these issues are present in society today, I think we as teachers need to encourage children to use social networkers, they are the way of the future whether we like it or not! And in many ways they are much safer than chat rooms where identities can be disclosed and stalking can occur. Children enjoy using Bebo so why not put an educational spin on it!

In my classroom next year I would use Bebo as a means of communication between home and school. Students could access my Bebo account where they can message me concerning homework tasks and upcoming events. I would even pose educational questions that children would have to find information on an upload onto their profile, my white board or create links to the corresponding websites.

Parents could also send me messages regarding a child's school work or performance, via my private message setting or even via my whiteboard if they are wanting other parents to see their messages as well.

I would encourage children to use Bebo whiteboards to write recounts about their holidays or weekends and write their own blogs helping them in developing skills in autobiography writing.
I would monitor children's pages to ensure that no inappropriate messaging was occuring and ensure that I had previously educated each student on safe Beboing!

I believe that it is impecible that we set up our future generation with the required skills they need to survive in the future and become well informed, active citizens in society. Social networking and communication via the internet through websites like Bebo is a way that we can teach the necessary skills of communication in a medium that children love to use!

Implementing Bebo into classroom practice...what does this depend on?

Ok so I have elaborated on some of the attributes of Bebo and how they can be benefical to children's learning in response to curriculum areas, essential skills and key competenicies, but how can we really implement Bebo into classroom practice as a way of helping children to develop communication skills? and what are some of the implications?

• An issue here is lack of teacher competence.Teachers may require professional development in this using Bebo and social networking. Bebo is predominantly used by the younger generation, therefore many teachers may not be savvy with using this social networker. Before teachers can encourage children to use Bebo, they need to be aware of its potential and how to use it.

Possible solution: Firstly techers would need to become competent with using the internet. Today it is becoming essential that teachers are confident in using the internet, when researching I came across a website called Marco-Polo, which encompasses a free teacher- trainning programme that helps teachers become more internet savvy and become aware of the useful tools; like social networkers that are out there, and how they can be used to create rich web based contexts in their classroom. Along with this, this fantastic website provides resources teachers can use to help implement the internet into the classroom.

Check out the website if you feel as if you are in this prediciment http://www.marcopolo-education.org/teacher/teacher_index.aspx

US higher ed admissions increasingly using social media: new study
Filed under: General News, Weblogs — Bryan Alexander @ 08:24:57 am
American college, and university admissions departments are increasingly using social networking tools, according to a new study.

The use of blogging, social networking, writing and drawing on message boards as a form of communication is on the increase, this graph is American based, but the increase of New Zealanders using these forms of communication is phenominal! How many individuals do you know that don't have a Bebo page? I can't think of any.

If Social Networkers are so popular with university students why not encourage under 18 year olds to use Bebo as a means of communication too?

• An issue in response to this question is safety. When researching on the internet I found a few articles concerning children's safety when using social networking websites as a means of communication. When surfing the net I found a conversation concerning Bebo and its dangers. http://http//www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054914195 One writer voiced his concerns about how young children can be stalked or simply found on websites and added as friends. For many individuals this is a major concern, and I can understand why, in the past there have been many cases where children have been stalked via the internet.

Possible solution: I personally believe Bebo is one of the safer social networking websites, they take huge safety precautions and have recently changed some of the dimensions of their website, to make it a safer place for children under the age of 18 year olds. Bebo has many safety precautions and a hole link related to Bebo safety, that users, parents and teachers can access and read about.

If you are wanting to learn about some of the safety precautions Bebo has in place you can visit the Bebo website and click the link safety or visit one of these cyber safety websites, that have video footage and resources teachers can use to show students how to communicate using social networkers safely and in a positive manner.

Wired Safety- http://www.wiredsafety.org/wiredlearning/videos/index.html

Insafe-http://www.saferinternet.org/ww/en/pub/insafe/index.htm

This link takes you straight to Bebo safety, on this page there aredownloadable resources such as worksheets and poems that can be used in the classroom for teachers to teacher children how to use Bebo safely, so that they can implement it into classroom practice.

http://www.bebo.com/Safety.jsp

Example of a worksheet:

http://s.bebo.com/img/safety/safe_social_networking.pdf

Bebo definately provides a lot of resources to encourage safety. The website itself also acknowledges saftey for under 18 year olds. Children that are wanting to make profiles must set them to private so people other than their friends can not see them. Bebo has also created new elements to their website to prevent cyber bullying, children can now report bebo bullies and delete inapprioriate messages and pictures off their webpages. Users that are not following the code of conduct of Bebo also have their memberships terminated.

If Bebo is used appropriately a healthy virtual community of learners and friends can be created.

I am not the only one that shares these beliefs. When researching Bebo and social networking as a component of E-learning I came across other teachers that share my beliefs that Bebo has the potential to enable children to develop a wide range of communication skills through a variety of mediums.

Social networking in the classroom: Learning by Stealth

'We cannot have social networking during school hours', stated our CEO today. Oops....but that is what I do....well in a good way.

'How can we not encourage social networking if it has valid educational outcomes?

I tried to explain that my class does not end when the students work out the door. The collaboration, interaction and socialisation continues. My students interact with each other, they interact with me, their teacher, via online tools of various names and varieties which could all come under the broad term of 'social networking'. They have their own online areas, including digital portfolios, as well as community areas.

They post to blogs and respond to each other. They are out there using social bookmarking, folksonomy, class wikis, creating podcasts and vodcasts and putting them online, using social imaging (flickr) and anything else I can think of to encourage motivation and excitement in their ultimate quest for learning. I do not apologise for this.

I do not essentially see anything wrong with this in 21st century learning. In fact this approach has changed my whole teaching style and changed the way I interact with the students. The development of PLEs (personal learning environments) and ubiquitous and mobile computing means I now start my classes with '...open your blogs, refer to the class wiki...etc' rather than '..take out your books and copy from the board'.However, I will add that I agree with my CEO that non-focused, time-wasting activities during school time are to be discouraged' (Juile Lindsay, 2006)

Rest of the article and other responses that agree with the ideas this teacher presents:

http://123elearning.blogspot.com/2006/09/social-networking-in-classroom.html

As you can see this teacher has taken the fact on board that; social networking can be dangerous if it not used correctly, but if it is used effectively has the potential to truelly cater for children's needs in communication development. This teachers students are learning commuication skills through a rangeof contexts via the internet that are meaningful to them! So many of the ideas presented in this article I believe are valid to my arguement, teachers need to be preparing their students for future technological learning to help them cross over comfortably into the real world, rather than inhibiting their communication skill learning by giving them tasks that are only enabling them to communicate with their fellow peers. I feel children need to be learning about cultures all around the world, by communicating with children in Africa, Europe, Japan etc.

Joanne writes, "Social networking sites have taken us, educators, outside of our comfort zone. Like all other new technologies, we need to explore how we can continue to educate students about how to use these sites wisely".

This is a very valid statement. We can not prevent children from using social networkers at home,so why not encourage their use in a postive perspective and educate them how to use these websites wisely and safely by using them in an educational manner (develop E-learning literacy) or simply for healthy socialisation amongst peers.

Teacher encouraging students to use Bebo in a positive way!

How does Bebo address curriculum requirements?

In education today it is incredibly important that we as teachers are providing our students with the opportunity for them to experience the wonders of the world wide web, and how it can be used as an effective means to communicate with others around the world.

Bebo can be used to enable children to develop their skill and abilities in English. Currently English in the New Zealand curriculum- in regards to writen language suggests:

Students should be able to:

• engage with and enjoy written language in all its varieties;
• understand, respond to, and use written language effectively in a range of contexts.

Bebo has the potential to allow children to engage in a variety of writing methods, in personal blogs children are writing about themselves using a more creative stance. By using the whiteboard tool children are able to discuss with their peers topics or simply write recounts about what they have been doing on the weekend or over their holiday break. Many people can not see past the negativities Bebo can encourage, if you take a step back and take a look at the skills children are developing by creating their own Bebo page, providing this social networker is use sensibly, its possibilities are phenomenal!

Bebo also has the potential to enhance children's reading abilities, the beauty of Bebo is that everytime a child wants to learn about each other or understand a comment someone has written about them they have to read! Although many people don't realise it, reading is a huuge attribute of Bebo. By taking a closer look into the makeup of Bebo it becomes clear that this social networker corresponds with many of the ideas presented in the English in the New Zealand curriculum document. The Ministry of Education believes that reading and writing make it possible to understand, clarify, and communicate ideas, feelings, and thoughts, as well as to gather, process, and present information. Bebo can enable children to understand,clarify and communicate ideas, their feelings and thoughts concerning topics, they are also able to gather, process and present their information in a medium that is appealing to them. What I think is so powerful about Bebo is that children are learning communication skills along with many other useful life skills without even realising learning is going on! We all know that when children learn best when they are enjoying what they are doing and have developed an interest.

When looking at the Oral language area of English in the New Zealand curriulum it becomes visable that Bebo can facilate this dimension of learning too. English in the New Zealand curriculum states that

Students should be able to:

• <>engage with and enjoy oral language in all its varieties;
• <>understand, respond to, and use oral language effectively in a range of contexts.

Bebo also has the potential to enable learning in this area as well, children can engage in a variety of oral language mediums, such as watching videos their friends have posted on their page and even listening to voice messages each other have recorded and put on their page or yours.

English and language hugely impacts on the development of communcation skills. In the current draft curriulum communication skills have been recognised as an essential skill that children need to develop.
Communication Skills where students will:

• communicate competently and confidently by listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and by using other forms of communication where appropriate;
• convey and receive information, instruction, ideas, and feelings appropriately and effectively in a range of different cultural, language, and social contexts;
• develop skills of discrimination and critical analysis in relation to the media, and to aural and visual messages from other sources; or argue a case clearly, logically, and convincingly;

http://www.megabright.co.nz/UpSouth/curriculum.htm

Through the integration of ICT using social networkers such as Bebo, children are being exposed to these aspects of the essential skill, communication skills. they are developiing skills in listening, speaking, readiing and writing. They are communicating with a variety of different people all over the world, therefore they are conveying and receiving information, ideas and feelings in an appropriate context. Through Bebo children also have the chance to critically anaylse discrimination within oral and visual messages

There is so much potential in learning communication skills along with many other skills in Bebo, it makes me wonder why their is so much uproar in society concerning Bebo, and its use in the classroom. This is an area I will be concentrating on for my next blog, What are people saying about Bebo?- positive and Negative. This will enable me to crtique others views.

The various ways to communicate through Bebo

Bebo is a hive of activity, filled with add ons that enable individuals to communicate to one another. A popular method of communication is by writing on a friends whiteboard. This is where comments can be made, that are visable to everyone that is friends with that person. This is an effective/ safe way for children to communicate as their messages are visable and can be tracked if inappropriate messages are being posted. Using the white board tool also enables you communicate through pictures, this would be a fantastic way to get children to voice their messages/ beliefs in a visual manner.

Children are also able to communicate in a more personal manner, as Bebo includes an emailing tool, where you can send and recieve messages into an inbox, this isn't a real emailing system but it would definately be a fantastic way of faciliating children with experiences to get a feel for communication via emailing.

Emailing is definately a valued method of communication in this day and age, and it is incredibly important that children are able to use it effectively.

Another method of communication is by blogging. Your bebo page has a personal blog, that can be created by you and aded to by your friends. This is a wonderful way of getting children to express their personality, personal beliefs etc, and their friends can add to them.

One of the most powerful elements of Bebo in regards to communication, is the fact that individuals can be searched via a search engine. This is enabling children all over the world to get connected and understand a bit more about their world and how peoples lives differ emensely across the globe. Children can meet other children around the world that like the same music, have the same hobbies, are the same age, or even are distantly related.

Bebo is such a powerful tool to enhance communication skills, I personally believe its use should not be discouraged in schools. When used correctly Bebo's educational potentail is phenomenal!

My findings

Through experience, extensive research and exploration of Bebo; I have discovered the advantages of this social networker, and how it can be used to promote learning in and out of the classroom. I will be looking at the element of communication using Bebo as a means of creating social networks. When researching the communication element of Bebo I discovered a fantastic reading by Milton Keynes (2007) that evaluates digital learning and social networking using the internet.

I was interested in the area that evaluated the communication skills that can be developed through digital learning through Bebo; Keynes (2007) establishes that the government, local authorities and schools are encouraging the use of the internet to promote learning in a wide range of areas. 'Exploiting the online world is now a key means of extending and personalising the educational experience of all learners, and to young people, this is an obvious and natural way to learn'( Keynes, 2007. p.5) This is a very valid statement, children are becoming exposed to Elearning at a young age therefore by using their knowledge and skills they already have in this area teachers can teach communication skills suing a medium that the children are interested in.

When looking at other methods of communication on the internet that children have access to we become accustomed to networkers likechatrooms, according to Keynes (2007) these 'enable users to engage in ‘conversations’ with people across the street or across the world. They are similar to telephone conversations except that messages are typed instead of spoken. Usually everyone in a chatroom can see all the other participants’ contributions. Unlike email, once chat sessions are finished there will often be no obvious record of what has been posted'(p.5)The danger to children of public chatroom use is that people do not necessarily tell the truth about who they are.

If children provide personal information it is possible that they could be traced and contacted by another user who could then cause harm. Schools often see chatrooms as a home-leisure pursuit; however, the role of chatrooms in schools is likely to change. Systems exist which allow teachers to set up secure chat sessions where they can control who is taking part and when they occur. Personal safety programmes should explore with pupils the potential dangers of using chatrooms so that children understand how they can protect themselves. I personally believe that Bebo is a much safer wasy for children to comunicate amongst friends, mainly because their are many more safety procedures put in place where children can prevent people they don't know from reading their blogs and postings, also all of their entries/ posts are recorded and saved therefore these can be tracked if inappropriate discussion and communicating is occuring. This would be a fantastic way of enabling a class of students to socially network with each other.In future posts I will elaborate on the various ways to communicate through Bebo, who you can communicate with, the safety precautions that are taken.

Throughout these posts I will use a variation of readings and books to infuse my understandings and inform what I now know about Bebo. From this I will critique the element of communication through Bebo and explore viewpoints on the matter. Social Networking areas are websites which help connect friends using a number of online tools such as blogs, profiles, internal email systems and photos. Well known sites include Bebo and Myspace, and they are very popular with pupils.

Example of how Bebo can be used to communicate

Here is an example I managed to track down revealing how schools can use Bebo to postively enhance communication across their community and amongst their pupils.

This positive example of social networking passed across my desk recently......

Social networking solution to rapid school communication problem---

You've probably experienced the difficulties of communicating a simplemessage using Chinese whipsers. Following a fire alarm raised when gas was smelt within school we had 800 students on a field, on a cold Thursday afternoon in November. They were instructed to go home as the school buses had started to arrive, but much to their annoyance many students had to leave their mobile phones and wallets in school until engineers arrived to check the building.

The school office was also off limits until the risk could be assessedand staff returned home not knowing what would happen the next day. Oncea decision had been made that school would remain closed on the Friday,staff started to receive information through the telephone tree withdepartment heads contacting their staff. The message that school wouldbe closed was also broadcast on the local BBC radio station, Suffolkradio. Not the students first choice of listening matter. These established methods were not effective in reaching our students.My experience was:After arriving home at 4:15 I started to receive messages on my Bebo home page from students asking whether or not school would be open thenext day.

As I hadn't yet been contacted by telephone I was only able to assure students that I would post a message to my Bebo whiteboard when Ihad information. I was contacted by about 6 students through Bebo, usingboth private messaging and the public comments feature. About fifteen students also contacted me using instant messaging and Email.

One of these students whose father is a teacher at our school, was able to tellme that school would in fact in be closed. After checking this via anEmail to this teacher, who was far ahead of me on the telephone tree, Iwas then able to post on my Bebo whiteboard that school was in factclosed. Posting the information on a web page in itself was not the mostpowerful use of the Internet.

It was the fact that so many students were connected to each other through Bebo and instant messaging that the newswas able to travel so quickly. Many students found out that school wasc losed through Bebo and instant messaging before visiting the school website to check the information or receiving an Email. Once the news was published on the school website was automatically available as an RSS feed and Emailed to pupils and parents. Asignificant number of these emails bounced back however from unavailable email accounts. Either from these Email accounts no longer being used orour messages being identified as spam because such a large number weresent out.

Bebo and the power of community won. The message was quickly relayed from hand to hand with students then visiting the school website tocheck the validity of the message.I received my message from the telephone tree three hours after I'd heard it through Bebo.

A wonderful example of the digital divide was that students without access to the Internet (or who hadn't been contacted by friends and didn't listen to radio Suffolk) were the ones who arrived at school to find it closed the next day! And when the engineers arrived, they couldn't find any damage to our gas supply - it was most likely a combination of smelly chemicals pouredaway by the science department :)

Ruth Hammond
Safeguarding Project Manager
Standards and Frameworks Team Institutional Development Directorate British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta)Millburn Hill RoadScience ParkCoventryCV4 7JJ

I really appreciate this letter wrote by Ruth Hammond, as it reveals how a useful Social Networker tools, like Bebo; can be. I believe that our future lies in the hands of digital communication, and it is so important that we provide children with opportunities to experience communicating through networkers like Bebo.

This letter is a prime example of how Bebo is not merely a tool youths use to chat on, it can also be a powerful bearer of news and communication. This is just the beginning through, I believe that Bebo has the power to promote educational discussion and enable children to seek for ideas and answers in their classroom peers, and others across the globe their age.

Bebo Advocates

What is bebo??

Bebo is a social networking website designed to allow friends to communicate in various ways. It has developed into an online community where users can post pictures, write blogs and send messages to one another. There are many aspects of Bebo that can be used as a means of learning in and out of the classroom.Bebo enables children to experiement with tools for communication; ie emailing and instant messaging, linking classrooms/children around the world, penpals etc.

Bebo is an effective internet tool where children can learn how to use a variety of mediums such as music, videos, computer generated drawing tools and other computer technology developments.Bebo safety is an aspect of this site, that has been developed to abolish the negativities a tool such as this can create; ie cyber abuse, bullying. Stalkers etc.Bebo develops a community of learners; by enabling children to share their ideas and critique; meet others their age with similar interests around the world; develop blogs and polls .

Children are also provided with the opportunity to create their own personally designed webpage that reflects themselves as individuals.This Blog will investigate and elaborate on this emergiing technology and how it can be used to enhance the learning of communication skills, it will also analyse the issues surrounding Bebo in relation to communication and how to overcome these.