Social Networking: Yahoo! for Teachers

Yahoo! recently released a new social network for teachers allowing them to share learning materials.

Once you have an account, you will be able to explore projects added by other educators by state, grade level, and subject.

You can also connect with other teachers at other schools in your city, county, state – or anywhere!

What looks most interesting is the Gobbler, a tool that allows teachers to build a project by saving images, clippings, links, and other information from websites to your projects in Yahoo! Teachers. You can also create handouts or worksheets using the document creator and add it to your project. All your projects can be saved in a portfolio and shared with other teachers, and they can share their projects with you.

To get an account and check out this new network, go to the Yahoo! Teachers home http://teachers.yahoo.com/ to sign up for an invitation. You will be sent a password for the Beta site. The Beta site will then allow teachers to register for an account.

Social Networking: Another Facebook? or a Better Facebook?

Report: Plaxo to unveil social network on Monday
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9754399-2.html?tag=nl.e776

Webware is reporting that Plaxo, which is a contact and scheduling management service, will be launching Pulse, a new social networking site on Monday. I’ll have to look at this next week when it becomes available.

One major difference between Facebook and Pulse is that Pulse will offer the option to have a user’s profile open to the public. However, users will still be able to limit who will be able to see their profile. In adding options for more privacy, Facebook has allowed one to have portions of their profile visible to friends or networks, but generally not to the public.

I really appreciated when Facebook introduced its privacy options, and, if I’m understanding this correctly, I think Pulse is broadening options for users. It’s a new way to address the privacy issues surrounding social networking by giving the user more control of what level of public and private he or she is willing to allow their information to be.

The other interesting feature I would like to check out is the ability to put friends into custom categories. I’d like to see how I can distinguish between my high school and college friends, former co-workers, professional contacts, and friends from other parts of life.

OK, Pulse, I’ll give you a chance…let’s see what you can do…

found via the CNET Webware Weekly newsletter

Vendor News: Browse a Book in MySpace?

Oxford University Press is looking toward social networking sites as places to sell books. See the full story at:

http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/widget/

This sounds like a great idea to me, but I wonder if they can provide “suggestions” based on the interests or hobbies listed in my profile. Hmmm, that would be nice…

Courtney