Social Media For The Classroom

Bringing technology to the classroom has it's advantages.  Accessing free technology to enhance your students educational experiences also helps the educator.  I reviewed an article about free social media at:  http://mashable.com/2010/10/16/free-social-media-tools-for-teachers/ that outlines 7 resources with detailed information about their features, uses and classroom applications.  They even include video information and demonstrations about each of the offerings.  I found this information helpful and encouraging.  I was impressed and appreciative of the special security features that a number of them provided.  And, even though I teach at community college where my students and I have free training and access to an internet system that already offers discussion forums, quiz sections, etc... I readily was able to identify ways that some of these tools could be used and accessed by other areas of my life for teaching, meeting and collaborating with others.  For example, I would love to organize a church bible study on one of the sites for collaboration and insight. I believe the more we experience the available media, the better able we will be to determine which ones will help us meet our students needs better.