Journal # 2, Klein, J. (2008), Social Networking for the K-12 Set

In the Klein, J., article, Social Networking for the K-12 Set, the author seemed to be a braggart of sorts. The writing made the impression that the author and his cohorts had created a brand new web product that every school district could not do without. Considering the year that it was published and what I have read prior to this article it seems to me that the creation of the school district web application described in the article was not that much of a grand advancement in technology use in schools. I am new to this setting but, I doubt that the announcements made in the article were as grand as the author wanted the reader to understand the creation of SAUGUS represented.

Clearly the article was an attempt to share with other school districts an advancement in technology which seems to have useful purposes. The goals of the group who constructed the system described in the article were well laid out in the beginning. It appears that the school district was interested in making Web 2.0 useful in their schools. To assign four school district employees to an undertaking which produced this type of system is forward thinking and should be replicated where the funds are available. I could not precisely determine from the article if the authors were offering their system for usage by others or if the authors were describing their system for others to use in designing their own system.

When I observed at LaCosta Canyons High School that school had their own television broadcasting system and one of the teachers I met with provided me access to the school's website which appears to have all of the bells and whistles described in this article. I visited the website before observing the class and I was impressed by the website. However, after having access to the website and seeing what uses the students and teachers were given by the system I am led to believe that it has the uses described and more. In fact, the website granted access to the Unified School District's website and all the public information in that website.

Question 1: Does the Klein article describe a system which is now in common use in California? I have visited several area school district websites and I believe that the system described in the article is in use in at least some San Diego County schools. This may have colored my opinion about this article.

Question 2: If I am hired by a school district which does not have a similar system should I advocate for the creation of such a system in my new district? Of course funding will always be the final arbiter of the answer to this question, but the benefits of this type of technology system cannot be ignored if our children are to be provided an education which they deserve.