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How do you use social media in your teaching? What sites or twitter feeds do you find most useful. Here is a recent post on 50 top twitter feeds for STEM http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2011/12/14/50-essential-twitter-feeds-for-stem-educators/

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but if you are interested in using a good interface that sort of mimics facebook or twitter in your classroom, but I use Edmodo.com in my class. It is basically like a classroom facebook site, but it is just for teachers and classrooms. You can post assignments, videos, discussions and the kids LOVE it. I use NASA's twitter feed in my classroom.

One of my co-workers has a blog for her students but it does not seem like many students actually use or visit the site. I have considered using a blog or a website, but it seems like it would be a lot of additional work. Do alot of students use your edmodo site? Do you think it has a positive impact on student learning? Thanks

I truly do believe that Edmodo has a very positive effect on my class' learning. They are actively engaged with each other. I make it a requirement to post. Also, picture it like this: It is just like a facebook site, however it is purely educational talk. They post pictures and articles they find. We all use it and find it very engaging.

I like wikispaces a lot. A wiki is a lot like a blog, but you organize it as a bunch of pages that everyone can edit, and each page has an associated forum. wikispaces is free for K-12 educators, you just have to tell them and they waive the fee of $5/month. You can set up a wiki that everyone can see but not touch, and a wiki where everyone can post.

Edmodo is very cool. I just checked it out tonight. I will have to play around with it more before I roll it out to my 5th graders ( who always wonder if they can be my friends on Facebook - no.) They will love it. Great for grades and a link for parent too.

There are several teachers at my school (middle school) who have started using Edmodo and reported having very positive learning outcomes with it. I definitely want to learn more about how to use it. I think one challenging aspect of something like Edmodo is that I can't always get all my classes into the computer lab because there are computer classes during that time, so i'd have to rely on them using it at home, and I don't know if that is fair; there are still a few students who don't have internet at home. At my last school, the majority didn't have internet at home. I do have a classroom Wiki and I like using that as a communication tool with students and parents.

At my school, we used Room21 last year. It's meant to be a sort of catch-all program. On the teacher end, it has a gradebook, calendar, lesson upload, rubric generator, etc. All of which are adequate. However, it also integrates email, wiki, blogging, something called a "vision board", and facebook updates/reminders. My kids pretty much loved it. I posted most of my assignments online through Room21, had blog discussions, parent communications, etc. It was great. You could even upload videos and have the students watch the videos imbedded into your lessons. Why did I stop using it? I'm not sure if we still have the license for it. I fully intend to use it next year if we still have the license.