How to Use Social Media for Learning--The Right Way!

Just in time for moms preparing for the new home school year, here is an excellent post about how to use social networking in a productive, educating, and respectful way. You will want to bookmark the link below for future reference!

Allison at Totus Tuus Family & Homeschool attended the Vatican Bloggers Meeting in Rome, she explains, and has become much more interested in the realm of social media and its possibilities.

As Catholic moms, I know you will agree with me that there are many pitfalls to social networks, but--as with all things--they also possess a potential that can praise Our Dear Lord and help teach our children in new and glorious ways. As always, it is up to the parents to provide the proper guidance.

If you don't know where to begin, here's a great place to start.

As my children are getting older (now both teens), they are aching to use more social networking, something I have been holding back. And I have been wondering how I can help them learn the beneficial ways to use the new medium. First, I need to educate myself. That's why I like this post so much. It gives specifics, sites and resources to check out myself.

Many thanks to Allison at Totus Tuus Family & Catholic Homeschool!

Totus Tuus Family & Catholic Homeschool: How to Use Social Media for Learning ... and homes...: "I just read this article that relates to the image above and wanted to capture it's message here and share it. Ever since my trip to the V..."

Bloggers Meet in the Vatican: from Catholic News Agency

Vatican gathering of bloggers hailed as a success

By David Kerr

Vatican City, May 2, 2011 / 10:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The first ever Vatican sponsored gathering of Catholic bloggers is being hailed as a success by participants.

The conference was hosted by the Pontifical Council for Culture. It drew a large amount of interest with over 750 bloggers applying to attend and over 9 million Google hits on the subject over the past five weeks alone. Logistics determined that only 150 could take part, so organizers held a drawing, deciding who could attend.

At the end of the event, organizer Richard Rouse seemed delighted.

“It went really well. I’m really glad we had this meeting. It was completely uncontrolled and uncontrollable so I’m glad that it’s taken place. I thought the best thing was the meeting face to face of different bloggers. That was great.”

Most bloggers in attendance seemed to feel that the Vatican was genuine when it said it didn’t want to control the Catholic blogosphere. There was also a general welcome for the Vatican’s own attempts to overhaul its online presence. Reservations still remained, however, about the local level.

“At the Vatican level I’ve been assured that they’re there’s no interest in regulating bloggers - and I believe them. These people don’t lie,” says Rome-based Canadian blogger Hilary White of the “Orwell’s Picnic” site.

“What I think is that they (the Vatican) are trying to do today is to send out a message to the national bishops conferences to say ‘let them go, bloggers are here to stay and that they’re going to keep saying things that people don’t want them to say and they’re going to keep looking under rocks that nobody wants them to look under'.”

As the meeting broke up, there was enthusiastic talk of another similar gathering or even more localized versions of the get-together.

Kindle, Kindle, Kathleen's Catholic on Kindle!

 It was March already, and my birthday passed a few months hence. But there was a surprise waiting for me, and to tell you the truth, I really didn't know what to do with it. I had been warding off something like this as soon as it appeared on the market. That is--an ereader.

A real bookie, I am. I love (re: LOVE!!) holding a bound copy in my hands, the smell of the paper, and the feel of the cover in my palms. A plastic ereader just didn't cut it.

But there is was, sitting on the table, offered to me by my in-laws as a late birthday present. Hmm. Well, hey, I'll give it a try. (And I was grateful for their thoughtfulness.) That was merely four weeks ago.

Since then, I found tons of free Catholic books, added Kathleen's Kindle to my blog's bookshop, and bought my first Kindle novel, a Catholic one called Death Panels by Michelle Buckman. I even invested in a nifty leather cover and light. Oh! I'm getting into this.

My husband is calling me a newbie techie. My kids are gasping. I'm holding the Kindle in my palms and typing with my thumbs for the first time in my life. "Mom? How do you know how to do that?" My Ben calls me a "touch typist." I always wondered if there were any other kind. Now I know. The thumbs indeed have more territory than just the space bar.

And now I have an announcement! Coming soon to a Kindle near you!

I'm so excited. In just a day or two,  Kathleen's Catholic: How Grace Drizzles In will be available to all Kindle users. The program at Amazon allows bloggers to publish their posts and send them throughout the world to download onto the ereaders. The best part: everyday the entire post content, with live links, is downloaded onto your Kindle in its entirety, so you don't need to your web browser to read it. Awesome! I have already subscribed to CatholicMom.com and The Snoring Scholar.

To subscribe at Amazon, click here. To subscribe on your Kindle, just go the Kindle Store and click on Blogs. An easy way to find me? Type in "Catholic mom." And--zip!--there's Kathleen's Catholic. The photo you'll see is the crucifix at one of our local parishes.

By the way...Can my readers do me a big favor? Would you click on this link, then click on Like and write a quick review about Kathleen's Catholic? You'll notice that the blog profile is not yet on the Amazon page, but I know that you already know KC, right? Even if you choose not to subscribe, this would be a great help to me. Thanks so much!

Well, I have to say all this technology has been a real journey for me. I never thought I'd surf and browse, upload, download, post, and link a dozen times a day. In the old days, I was grateful for an electric typewriter, a stack of envelopes, and a book of stamps. Yes (wink, wink), I was just a baby then. Really, I was.

God bless!