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1Facebook
Facebook (FB) first started out as a social networking website strictly for college students and by invitation only. Today registration is now open to the public, and FB has since become the top leader in social networking websites. The appeal of FB is its ability to join several networks around schools, businesses and regions. It has a huge user base and an abundance of useful features and applications. FB originally started out as a social networking site for the Gen Y demographics, but it is now moving towards business and professional networking. It is an ideal platform for educators interested in networking, personal branding, and expanding job searches.
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2Twitter
Twitter is a real-time micro-blogging network, powered by people around the world, that lets individuals share with one another what's happening now. Based on a short messaging system (SMS), Twitter bridges the gap between blogging and instant-messaging through brief messages that are 140 characters or less. Twitter's popularity is due to its ease of use. The appeal of Twitter for many professional educators is its ability to connect them with others in related fields and similar interests to create a personal learning network (PLN). Within PLNs, educators can lend support and share resources with one another.
http://twitter.com/
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3Delicious Social Bookmarking
Delicious is a free social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, and manage links and websites in one centralized place. Delicious relies on collaborative bookmarking, which allows users to discover and share their Internet findings with the Delicious community. It offers Subscription and Network features where individuals can follow interesting or resourceful users, and create their own bookmarking networks based on similar bookmarks and tags. Because Delicious is web-based, users can access their bookmarks anytime anywhere through the Internet. Professional educators can use Delicious as a storehouse for their online resources, discover great bookmarks on topics of interest, and keep track of popular tags.
http://delicious.com/
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4Diigo Social Bookmarking
Diigo is much like Delicious, but takes social bookmarking to a whole new level! Ideal for research, Diigo allows users to highlight, annotate, and add sticky notes right on the webpages. These notes can be made private, public, or shared with a group. Additional features include screenshots, bookmark archives, tag or list organization, and interactive slideshows of listed URLs. Professional educators can use Diigo to create personal learning networks (PLNs) and interactive group knowledge repositories.
http://www.diigo.com/
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5Google Reader
Google Reader is a free web-based and customizable aggregator that allows users to subscribe to RSS or Atom feeds online and reads them in a web browser. It is used to keep track of content updates of blogs, news sources, and other websites. Users can share interesting reads with family, friends and colleagues through email, Facebook or Twitter updates, or via their personal blogs. Paired with Google Gears, Google Reader content can also be accessed and read offline. Professional educators can use Google Reader to keep track of their wide reading, or as a way to receive notification of content updates to classroom blogs, collaborative projects using Google Docs and Google Apps, or student wikispaces. To use Google Reader, Google Docs, and Google Apps, educators must first sign up for an account.
http://reader.google.com/
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6LinkedIN
LinkedIN is a professional networking website that allows individuals to create an online working profile. Essentially the user's LinkedIN profile acts as an online resume, and has the added benefit of allowing connections (past or present classmates and colleagues) to endorse the user with brief recommendations. LinkedIN has a smaller user-base than Facebook, but its appeal to users is largely due to its complete professional atmosphere. In addition, LinkedIN also offers many tools to help individuals with their career, job, or business. Professional educators can search for their alma mater, previous employments, and other professionals in a similar field to connect and expand their network.
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7Ning Social Networks
Ning is a social network platform that allows individuals to create their own online communities around similar passions and interests. Creating a Ning network is a breeze - it takes less than 30 seconds, and has up to 15 customizable features. Professional educators can use Ning networks for many uses- they can search for communities in similar fields to supplement their professional development, create their own professional network around a particular interest, or even create private Ning networks with their students and school communities. A great example of an educational Ning is Classroom 2.0 (www.classroom20.com). It has over 38,000 educators sharing many wonderful resources, ranging from free webinars and workshops, tutorial videos, over 460 subgroups, and an excellent discussion forum.
http://www.ning.com/
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8Edmodo
Edmodo is a free social platform that combines the characteristics of Twitter and a Ning network in one. Professional educators can create their own private classroom networks, which they can use to share ideas, files, events and assignments with their students. Edmodo is a great platform for educators who are interested in centralizing their information in one location and creating a paperless and digitally interactive classroom.
http://www.edmodo.com/
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9Google Buzz
Google Buzz is like an RSS feed that combines all of one's social networking accounts, hosted within the Gmail and Google infrastructure.Status feeds look similar to Facebook status updates. Google Buzz's 5 key characteristics are: automatic friend lists, fast sharing of applications such as Picasa and Twitter with full-sized photo browsing, public and private sharing, inbox integration, and recommended buzzes of friend-of-friend thread content. Google Buzz can be used on a PC or mobile device. Relatively a new social networking platform, professional educators can use Google Buzz to centralize all social networks, set private groups and messages in house with students and colleagues, and create public Google Profiles similar to LinkedIN's online resumes.
http://www.google.com/buzz
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10The APPLE
The Apple is a huge teacher community that combines the features of LinkedIN and Ning. It offers career resources, career profiles, salary maps, current educational news and articles, shared lesson plan, quizzes and video directories, and a large active forum with many subgroups. The Apple also has free worksheet downloads, monthly book giveaways, and even free information on degree programs. Clearly this is the place where teachers can meet and learn!
http://theapple.monster.com/