Using Social Media To Teach

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Fifth grade students at Port Orange Elementary School in Florida have given Thomas Jefferson advice on writing the Constitution and have had conversations with Louis and Clark on their way west.

Their teacher, aka Jefferson, Robert Miller, has been using the free social networking site Edmondo, made for school use, to extend learning beyond the classroom. Such sites have been called "interactive environments" in an article in Education Week's "Multimedia Transformation".

Olivia Connelly, an English teacher in New York, says that her 38 minute classes don't give her enough time, so she uses ePals to share students writing with classmates and claims that writing is greatly improved. With the ability to store documents, comparisons can be made.

Other sites are Gaggle, which costs $5 per student, while eChalk is $5000 that the school pays -- all of which are indications that educators are trying to capture the excitement that kids feel when communicating online, knowing that students who are engaged are better achievers.

Reported By Dr. Marciene Mattleman, KYW Newsradio