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Social media tools can help break the barriers set by the walls of schools. Learning and communicating outside the school hours with technology aid is a modern adaptation of education that has showed great results. This post looks at some web tools that provide school-specific tools that are just as powerful in facilitating the communication inside the student-teacher-parent triangle as the more famous popular social networking sites..

"Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways. Whether you teach an elementary class, a traditional college class, or at an online university, you will find inspirational ways to incorporate social media in your classroom with this list."

A variety of uses for social media, linked to real examples by educators in the classroom.

Some interesting tools and how they might be used mentioned in the post. "In the past, limited access placed a hardship on teachers to meet the diverse needs of their students, especially when school resources are limited. In this brave new world, we are fortunate to live and work in an environment where the possibilities are endless for getting students what they need when they need it, and in a format that works best for them. How are you tapping possibilities to meet learner needs?"

Mr Moses has constructed a compelling argument for embracing the use of social networking tools with students via a series of links and embedded movies on this media wiki page. If you're looking for those reports that you know would back up your case for using these tools then check in here as chances are Mr Moses has a link to them.

"Blogs and Twitter aren't the only social tools out there that can help you keep up with the latest and greatest developments in educational technology. Pinterest is rapidly becoming a favorite tool of educators all over the nation, and many have amassed some pretty great collections of edtech-related pins that teachers and students alike can use to explore new ways to learn, share, teach, and grow. While it would be nearly impossible to highlight every edtech pinboard out there, we've shared some of the boards we think stand out among the crowd here. Many are maintained by major educational websites, key figures in edtech, and well-known bloggers, but others were created by teachers just like you who simply want to share resources and tips with others in education."

A response to Marc Prensky's BLC'08 session on teaching programming

would require a steep learning curve anyway. But incorporating lesson plans and info and assignments into the tools that students already use would be both cheaper and more likely to actually be used. Of course, some will decry that these sites are automatically bad for kids -- or that it makes no sense to waste time on such issues. But the fact is kids are going to use these sites no matter what. Ignoring that doesn't change that. Banning the sites doesn't change that. It just makes the activity more underground without any oversight or reasonable lessons. But incorporating