collect, reflect on and share your achievements and development online, in a space you control
create online communities and social network through Groups, Blogs and Forums
text, subtext, context -- how the open nature of social networking leads to messages that rely upon key cultural/contextual understandings to arrive at the "correct" meaning.
As New Slate teachers are looking to integrate technology into classroom practice, this Ning is the most robust and helpful community I have found for English teachers and elementary teachers of literacy and literature. Award winning.
This article fails to mention that kids often times have two Facebook accounts: one that parents know about and one that they don't. Monitoring applications may further promote this model.