Foot: The Socially Networked Classroom

As I was reading Dr. Kist’s The Socially Networked Classroom one of the first things that caught my attention was the multigenre autobiography. A lot of the information was repetitive from what we’ve heard in class, but I liked that the book gave more of an explanation as to why this assignment is beneficial to us. Another activity that grabbed my attention was the “This Is An Apple” Activity. I think that that’s a clever way of getting students to think about the way they multitask. I liked this activity because it reminded of how much I multitask throughout the day. With so much technology around me, like my phone, computer, television, and Facebook, I can hardly concentrate on one item alone. The third activity that stood out to me was the online literature circles. I am familiar with literature circles from Teaching Reading with Literature. I liked that this book offered suggestions on how to grade literature circles. I think it’s important not to just give points to students because they participate, but to reward them because they are actually thinking critically about what they are reading. My question about using literature circles online, like through Facebook, is what do you do if you have a parent of a student in your class who refuses to allow their child to have a Facebook account. Overall, I found Dr. Kist’s book very interesting and helpful. I think it offers a lot of good suggestions that I can use in a classroom.