How to Promote Lifelong Learning and Random "Teaching Moments": (1) Connect with your students on Facebook, YouTube and other social media, (2) Post only items that are favorable to the education of students and (3) Set your settings at "Public."

Why should a teacher make his website and Facebook account public?  Why should a teacher connect with students?  Why should a teacher set photos on "public"?

Here's the "Sad Songs Say So Much" video

Here's a short clip from a workshop that I gave in April 2013.  This clip appeared on my Facebook activity.  My students (who are connected to my Facebook account) can see what I'm doing.   

Why is it important for students to see an adult's activity on the Internet?  Because my Facebook work shows that teachers really do useful things outside the classroom.  Youtube uploads, Scribd.com documents, tweets can all help students see that there are productive things that adults do with social media.

When a Youtube account is connected to a Facebook account,
the activities are captured

Some of my mentors include Ryan Cohn of WhatsNextMarketing and Bob Finch from ifinch.net.  Both Bob and Ryan have demonstrated the use of social media in business settings and their work shows me how to act responsibly with various accounts.   Some of their tips:  (1) connect your accounts so when you post on Scribd.com, your contacts on Facebook learn about the update.  (2) connect widely.  Take time to create an account on the following:  twitter, facebook, scribd.com, youtube.com, tumbler, stumbleupon, and consider the advantages of Sites Google, Vimeo,  (3) take the time to clic on other people's projects and ask them to click on your projects.  This shared clicking will increase the traffic that is counted by Klout.com.    I recently saw this post on Facebook by Ryan:  

Had a great time speaking at the Social Fresh East Conference in Tampa. Big thanks to Jason, Corey, Nick and many others. Check out the slides from my presentation, "What Doesn't My CEO Get About Social Media?" here:http://bit.ly/Social_CEO (2 photos)    [ post by Ryan Cohn ]

This is an example of the "activity log" that
a Facebook account maintains.  Look at these
multiple postings of videos to my YouTube account.

So I reposted this link and added the following: Ryan Cohn will be seen 20 years from now as one of the quiet advocates of social media for business. I hope he creates a "social media handbook" for teens so my students can practice today building skills for use in their careers. If you are a teacher, link with Ryan and learn about the future. They say that our students are preparing for jobs that haven't been invented yet. Learn more about Ryan's work and you'll join me in staring at the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHNBaxBdgWc

Here's a student who lives on a long island in the Caribbean who would like to interact with my students.  We talked about her favorite song, "Beautiful Goodbye" by Maroon Five.  

These moments are available to my students.  My teenaged students can get a glimpse of the world that they will enter soon and they can ask me about these experiences.

So, mentors, show us your best side.  Share your special traits and strengths.  Send me your highlights and show us your workspace.   See what BoxOfCrayons did with a 9-minute office tour.

This is a valuable exercise.  Help my students tour an office.  Let students see what is real in the "real world."  ... and do the tour on Facebook, where my students live.   That's why I have seen that teachers (and mentors) can have impact on students' lives through social media.

People might object to a teacher who "exposes" students to the adult world.  My aim is to show my students things that are true, pure, honest, lovely, just, of good report, ... let's think on these things.