Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Twitter is a one of the many Web 2.0 social networking tools out these days. I decided to try it out after our district IT director started an ewcsdtech twitter feed. I'd heard about Twitter many times before, but I just am not that big on "staying in touch" with a lot of people or "keeping up" with the latest news or gossip. My lovely wife has gotten into Facebook over the last few months and really likes it. She's in the loop on many happenings among our church friends and with her old friends back home in Arkansas. I had the strange experience the other night of going to our kinship meeting at church and finding that many of the group had already heard the news of several sick families through FB. I was a little "behind". I think I can live with that. After choosing to not watch regular TV for the last 20 years, I've been a little "behind" for some time and not too sorry about it.

There are quite a lot of people on FB in my district and school site as well. I guess as long as we're not doing official communication over FB, I'll be OK.

Is there any use for Twitter, FB, etc. for people like me? We'll see. Anyway MrRosa2 is my Twitter feed.

Our class is also gearing up for a class meeting on Second Life. Interesting that when I talk to others about this I get apprehensive reactions citing the "adult entertainment" reports they have heard. I've noticed a number of risque images on my visits. I DO NOT want to get involved in anything of that sort, nor risk exposing my students to it. Mainly it seems like a big hobby to put time into. The visual experience reminds me of FPS games like HalfLife and its ilk which can be a lot of fun and very addicting.

A personal triumph I had this week was finding out that two of my video production students were recruited by the PTA to make a pancake breakfast advertisement. They took on the project with gusto and turned out a decent product in an afternoon. Not bad for fourth graders... See video below (w/ ID protecting masks). Honestly, I get a special kind of satisfaction when people implement skills that I have taught them. That is a big part of why I got into teaching.