Social Learning

One of the KATE sessions at the KySTE Conference was about the social change taking place in learning. It was really fun reviewing the possiblities of social learning with a group of teachers and administrators at KySTE. Several participants at the Conference reported that they use Facebook and Twitter to get news out about their schools. They report everything from school closings to recognition of academic success, student or faculty awards, scheduled events, etc. In fact, CNN and other news organizations reported yesterday that Facebook had more hits last week than Google. In addition, the report said that in a month more time is spent on Facebook than on Google by users, actually about three times as many hours. I turned the channel and saw Katie Couric reporting on teaching strategies in the Hope Christian Schools in a very poor inner-city area of Wisconsin. The students have posted a video entitled "Scholar Ladies (Get An A On It)" as a video response to Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It). They hope to get a million hits and I hope that you will help them do it. I plan to use my blog post for the next few weeks to continue the conversation on social networking. We've added several features to our KATE webpage to bring a greater feeling of community to it. Scroll to the bottom of the page and follow us on facebook, twitter, or through our RSS feeds which include this blog.