@TeachPaperless

I would have tweeted this post, but there are going to be too many characters.
Admittedly, in the beginning I was daunted by my Social Media Course. I signed up for "Neuroscience for Educators." To my disappointment, this elective was canceled and I was forced to sign up for "The Creativity Challenge" (umm...ew) or "The Paperless Classroom." I thought that the second option sounded practical enough and enrolled.
While I am in the admittance mood, I was discouraged initially by my instructor's (Shelly's) enthusiasm. I thought he was a quack. A quack that plays World of Warcraft (well I was right) has like 956840956849056890548690548690 online accounts, doesn't interact outside of cyberspace, and was attempting to brainwash us all. This initial impression lasted for a few class meetings...(maybe more than a few...)
In all seriousness, I am glad I learned to use these tools to my advantage. (Yes, Shelly, you may tweet "I told you so") Twitter, blogs, and many other awesome sites (shout out to delicious!!) are totally a part of my classroom experience now. I really wish this class would have lasted a bit longer actually (although I am not bitter about being out of class early for my birthday this week...YES!). We were finally working together--planning as professionals.
I am a fan of the practical. I think the social media movement is fine and potentially perfect for the classroom. However, if I could offer any advice to Shelly it would be this: 1. Say hi to your grad students upon their entry to the classroom. They can see you (you are "online" and "visible" so to speak.) A tweet would suffice :-). 2. Spend more time talking about how this stuff relates in the classroom! I felt like we didn't spend enough time with that. This class would totally have drawn everyone in earlier had you shown us a lesson day one, day two, day three...you get the idea. We are teachers, dude. 3. Keep it up. The world is waiting.