25 Social Networks/Media Sites for Education

"A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige. (Wikipedia)" Since I last posted on Social Networks over a year ago, a number of new ones have been introduced that can be a huge benefit to education. With that being said, I decided to list my favorite networks for education that targets technology literacy.

*This list is in alphabetical order.

25 Social Networks/Media Sites for Education 

1. 30hands Learning - The 30hands Learning Community is an excellent cloud based solution for educators looking to collaborate w/ others, track/manage students, schedule events, and more.
2. Brainly - A fun social network where students post questions and other students from around the world post answers.
3. ClassHook - a great place to find educational videos/clips that can "skip" inappropriate content.
4. Classloom - A fun social network where students and educators can share resources and view resources that works on any mobile device.
5. Classroom 2.0 - Created by Steve Hargadon and used by thousands of educators on a daily basis. This site alone changed the way I viewed education and ignited my passion for Ed Tech and Web 2.0.
6. Edmodo - One of the most popular social media sites/communities around that educators are using to connect find resources and connect w/ peers, students, parents, and more in a safe educational environment.
7. Educator's PLN - Built by Thomas Whitby, this social network is one of the most popular around for educational discussions and forums.
8. EducatorsCONNECT - A nice social network for educators to share resources, teaching practices, for friendships, and more.
9. Edudemic - Is an online community, magazine, and social network that has lots of information on technology, education, and integration.
10. Edutopia - A very popular organization created by the George Lucas foundation.
11. edWeb - A great place to connect and share ideas as well as for professional development.
12. Facebook -nuff said!!
13. Google Plus - Is the highly publicized social network by Google. While it is still in its early release there are a lot of features that make this an attractive option for education such as: hangouts - the impressive group video chat and circles - the way to control posts w/ privacy settings.
14. Gooru - A wonderful online learning platform that allows educators and students to connect share resources, activities, and track/monitor students activity.
15. ISTE Community - International Society for Technology & Education is a great place for educators to come together and collaborate on technology issues and build their Personal Learning Network.
16. IT Peer Network Education - A nice online community designed to facilitate online collaboration and increase teachers technology literacy.
17. Otus - Brings the entire school community (i.e. parents, teachers, students) together in a common technology platform, while providing actionable insight to school leaders.
18. Plurk - A social network similar to Twitter (micro-blogging) w/ a timeline view and fun karma based platform.
19. Skooville - A excellent network for kids learning about cyber safety.
20. Skype in the Classroom - One of the best ways around to bring real-time video collaboration to the classroom through: virtual field trips, "mystery' guests, and more.
21. Teamie - An excellent collaborative learning platform w/ mobile apps that easily supports "flipped" learning.
22. TED-Ed - The best place around to find educational videos and lessons.
23. Twiducate - A safe site where educators can create online communities/classes.
24. Twitter - Far and away one of the most popular social networks around. This micro-tweeting platform is used worldwide and especially in education (search hash tags #edchat , #edtech, #flipclass, etc). Plus, w/ the soon to come parental controls Twitter becomes a more viable option for educators everyday.
25. WhoTeaches - Is a network designed to bring students, parents, and educators together. This is done through collaboration w/ the ability to share documents and create groups. Also, this site offers high level education for online learners looking for tutors or to study.

Topsy

Topsy is a real time search engine for the social web. What this means is that it indexed results based on "social data" that is found on the web through: tweets, diggs, hits, etc. Some nice features of this site is the ability to share results via twitter, being able to embed to a Topsy buzz feed into your site, and much much more.

I recommend checking out Topsy by clicking here!!

Thanks to Richard Byrne for the tip!!

Edudemic

Edudemic is a wonderful site that reminds me a lot of Technology & Learning & Edutopia. It's a cross between an online community/magazine/social network. It is a great place to find lots of information on technology, education, and integration.

I highly recommend checking out Edudemic by clicking here!!

Thanks to David Andrade and his wonderful blog for the tip!!

Kosmix

Kosmix is an interesting search engine that focuses on finding the best in social media content. After doing a search on Web 2.0 and Technology Integration, I must admit the results were rather satisfying as it displays it's content in a nice visual snapshot.

I recommend giving Kosmix a try by clicking here!!

Storify

Storify is an interesting site for creating digital storytelling using social media. The way this is done is by taking different media: weets, pics, text, etc) and then arranging them in any order (similar to Google Search Stories). A user then can add text to create a story. Once the story is created it can then be embedded into a site.

I highly recommend checking out Storify by clicking here!!

Thanks to the wonderful blog, Zarco English for the tip.

Stinky Teddy

Well, this is going to be an interesting post, if not for just the name.... Stinky Teddy is a search engine that learned about from Larry Ferlazzo's great blog (I think he may have named it too ;-). It is a search powered by gossip. What this actually means is it is powered by social media to get up to the date data.

Give ST a try by clicking here.

Below are the results for a search on the term, "What is the best web 2.0 application?"

Popego

Popego is a new site (beta) that lets you find information or better yet, lets information find you. It's kind of hard to explain, but Larry Ferlazzo did a great job summing it up as "It looks like Stumbleupon on steroids."

Basically, after signing up you select which services you belong to: Flickr, Twitter, Digg, etc and then customize the Interest Feed and Popego takes care of the rest. Also, there is a nice widget feature which lets you embed your Popego profile in your website/blog. You never know that might be showing up on here in the near future.

Below is the tutorial from Popego's actual site...



Fore more info click here.