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Excellent perspective on "The 'W' Word" - use it wisely for what it is - high school and college kids shouldn't be citing any general knowledge encyclopedias for serious research - but that doesn't mean there aren't some excellent uses for it.

Finally someone has admitted it, Facebook makes you dumber.

Today's students live in an incredibly high tech world- from cell phones to Facebook to YouTube to iPods- K-12 schools are faced with a multitude of new challenges that must be addressed in your student handbook. How can you restructure your student handbook to include the potential issues that may arise as a result of students' increased use of these technologies? Join us for a live, 60-minute audio conference where you and your colleagues will learn:\n\n * Keys to Drafting K-12 Handbook Policies for Today's Students\n * Online Use Policies: Facebook, MySpace & Online Communities\n * Crafting Guidelines & Policies for Cell Phone & iPod Use at School\n * Protecting Your School from Liability: What You Need to Know\n * Cyberbullying & Technology Misconduct: What Educators Must Know

 Ideas about using Facebook in education

"Facebook is controversial within the educational circles-should it or should it not be included as a valid learning tool. Teachers coming under fire for Facebook postings. Should teachers friend students, former students, etc. At the very least, you should have as much information as possible before you make your final decision. Of course, your school/district policies may make the decision for you-but if not, here is all the information you will need to make an informed decision on using Facebook as an educational tool."

Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline Commentary by Kurt Opsahl Since its incorporation just over five years ago, Facebook has undergone a remarkable transformation. When it started, it was a private space for communication with a group of your choice. Soon, it transformed into a platform where much of your information is public by default. Today, it has become a platform where you have no choice but to make certain information public, and this public information may be shared by Facebook with its partner websites and used to target ads.

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop

"This is a proposal with many good ideas gained from different places (Facebook and Twitter) that could be put to school leaders/governors to try and integrate staff well-being into the school policies. Just add in you school name in the gaps and add your name at the bottom!"

Students at a Toowoomba school face expulsion for using Facebook.

Lots to wrestle with here: Bottom line - be wise, professional, kind, and have integrity. If we all followed these, there would be on problem

Social networking for teachers & students. Send homework, links, videos, participate in discussions, share ideas.

what puts kids at risk are things like: having a lot of conflict with your parents being depressed and socially isolated being hyper communicating with a lot of people who you don't know being willing to talk about sex with people that you don't know having a pattern of multiple risky activities going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, and behaving like an Internet daredevil.