Ways Schools are Using Social Networking for Teaching and Learning

Week 6

This week we were asked to curate a list of links that lead to projects done in classrooms using different forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc. I used Pearltrees to group mine by the social media type. 

Social Media for the 5th Grade Classroom, by khegel

With the global job market as competitive as it is, the sooner we start teaching our students how to learn using technology, the better. That does not mean that teachers are going to become obsolete and robots will teach all children, but kids need to start learning the technology lingo at a young age to succeed after high school.

To start students in that process, teachers can use some different forms of social media within the classroom. If students can reach out and communicate with other students from around the world, they are already becoming versed in the language of technology.

I know that it is extremely difficult to get the approval from some districts to use social media in the classroom without having to give away crucial information. What I've seen from some of the projects above, there are ways to use these forms of social media without giving away any crucial information about the students. The resource that allows this the most is Mystery Skype. This lets you go on and video chat with students across the world to figure out where the other class is based on yes and no questions. Using regular Skype with other schools across the country or even within your district can get your students to think outside the walls of your classroom.

Personally, I have had my 3rd grade students Skype with 7th graders from our district. The students were editing each other's work and practicing their public speaking all through the webcam.

This year, I want to incorporate a lot more social media into my classroom. I plan to have a class Skype and Twitter to start with.

Social Media Policies

Week 6

This week we were asked to modify our school district's Social Media Policy or create one. 

The public school district that I work for does not have a Social Media Policy or even an Acceptable Use Policy for technology. Middle and High School teachers send an Acceptable Use Agreement form home with students to allow them to bring their own technology. This form must be returned to school signed by themselves and their parents. The Acceptable Use Agreement outlines what technology is and how it should be used at school for educational purposes. It also has students agree that they will only use the wifi provided by the school. (St. Charles Parish Public Schools, 2015) This helps to ensure that students will not used sites and apps that are blocked by the internet filter while on the premises.

As far as employees are concerned, in my district, there are no policies stating what can and cannot be accessed in regards to social media.

This document is my idea of what could be used within my school district as a Social Media Use Policy. It is going to be focused on student usage of social media in the classroom.

Student Social Media Policy

Our impact

1. Follow the school's code of conduct when writing online.  It is acceptable to disagree with someone else's opinions, however, do it in a respectful way.  Make sure that criticism is constructive and not hurtful.  What is inappropriate in the classroom is inappropriate online. (Cornwall-Lebanon School District, 2016)
2. Do your own work!  Do not use other people's intellectual property without their permission.  It is a violation of copyright law to copy and paste other's thoughts. When paraphrasing another's idea(s) be sure to cite your source with the URL.  It is good practice to hyperlink to your sources. (Cornwall-Lebanon School District, 2016)
3. Users are responsible for their own behavior when communicating with social media. They will be held accountable for the content of the communications that they state/post on social media locations. (Pottsville Area School District, 2011)
4. Remember your audience: Be aware that a presence in the social media world is or easily can be made available to the public at large. This includes prospective students, current students, current employers and colleagues, and peers. Consider this before publishing to ensure the post will not alienate, harm, or provoke any of these groups.  (Ball State University, 2009)
5. Strive for accuracy: Get the facts straight before posting them on social media. Review content for grammatical and spelling errors. This is especially important if posting on behalf of the university in any capacity. (Ball State University, 2009)

Access

6. Users should have no expectation of privacy in anything they create, store, send, receive, or display on or over the School District’s CIS systems, and the School DIstrict’s authorized third partiers’ systems, including their personal files or any of their use of these systems. (Pottsville Area School District, 2011)
7. Track your success. Analyze and organize your content to improve your social media account. Use analytic tools to assess your progress and keep track of posts that users respond to positively. (Kansas State University, 2015)
8. Families can be helpful partners. Share your digital footprint with your parents and consider their suggestions. Get your parents’ input about what information they feel should remain private and what is fine to post publicly.  (New York Department of Education, 2013)
9. Adjust your privacy settings appropriately. Privacy settings are automatically set by social media providers governing who can see your posts, how information is linked, and what data is available to the public. Each social media platform has different privacy setting defaults and some change those settings without making it obvious to you. (New York Department of Education, 2013)
10. Report the behavior and get help. If you are being cyberbullied or hear about/observe someone else being cyberbullied, report the behavior and get help. You can tell a parent, school staff, another adult family member, or a trusted adult. (New York Department of Education, 2013)

Feedback

Before this document is even distributed to parents and students, the technology team that oversees the district's use of technology must agree and sign off on the wording of the document. 

Once the document is fine-tuned enough to receive feedback, it should be given to the legal department to receive their feedback. Feedback from the law offices will decide edits before release to the public.

After the law offices have given their edits, the document is ready to be released in DRAFT form to the public. At the next board meeting, the Superintendent and Board members can release the DRAFT and the following Google Forms link to collect feedback: http://goo.gl/forms/7zFbUEO03R7boHyh2.

Feedback will be collected for a month. This allows members of the community, parents, and even students to voice their opinions on the chosen policies. Edits will be made based on appropriate feedback from the community. 

References

Ball State University. (2009). Ball State University Social Media Policy. Retrieved from https://cms.bsu.edu/-/media/WWW/DepartmentalContent/Library/Copyright/PDFs/BallState_SocialMediaPolicy.pdf

Cornwall-Lebanon School District. (2016). Social Media/Network Guidelines for Students. Retrieved from http://www.clsd.k12.pa.us/staff.cfm?subpage=624705

Kansas State University. (2015). Social Media Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.k-state.edu/socialmedia/bestpractices.html

New York City Department of Education. (2013) Student Social Media Guidelines. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/9765B2DF-9BD5-42AA-8D85-005D0FC8AA23/0/Student_Social_MediaGuidelines_finalv3_20140128.pdf

Pottsville Area School District. (2011). Social Media Policy. Retrieved from http://www.pottsville.k12.pa.us/cms/lib07/PA01916599/Centricity/Domain/38/Social%20Media%20Policy%20-%20Students.pdf

St Charles Parish Public Schools. (2015). Bring your own technology - letter of agreement. Retrieved from

http://www.stcharles.k12.la.us/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=1287&dataid=1508&FileName=byot_letter_of_agreement.pdf

PLE Diagram and Comparison

Week 5

This week, after joining some Professional Learning Networks, I had to take all my social networking connections and create a diagram of my Professional Learning Environment. 

This is the image I chose to create to represent my Professional Learning Environment. The sharpies are represent the fact that even though all the sites and apps are different, they are still social networking sites. Just like all the highlighters are different, but part of the same pack.

I chose to split my PLNs into two categories: sharing and learning. When making a list of all my subscriptions and all the websites I have a log in to, the differentiation became clear. Half of the highlighters belong to websites that I go to frequently and involve an aspect of sharing. Of course, I can learn a lot of information from these sites, but I use them primarily to share information with other people. The other half are sites that I go to in order to learn something. Again, although I can and do sometimes share on these sites, I most often use them in order to gather information for personal and professional reasons.

 When reflecting on all the websites I actively participate in, I learned that my life revolves around either homework or social networking sites. Out of all these PLNs, I only used four of the ten before beginning the grad school adventure. Now, I feel more connected to teachers and leaders from all around the country and world.

Looking at the diagrams of six of my peers, Amanda, Kjersti, Kimmy, and Megan all shared the idea with my that out PLN's almost revolve around us in an equal measure. Amanda's diagram connects her idea to a bigger theme, just like my Sharpie pack. We have eight sites in common. She included search engines like Google and Chrome to the list. Kjersti had all of her elements being included under one central theme, like mine. We have six of our PLNs in common. She has some of the different blogging sites that I chose not to use. Kimmy's color palette mimics mine in the fact that they all revolve around her central character. We also have six of the same sites listed in our PLNs. Megan categorized her sites in four chunks, but still had them revolving around her without the sites connecting to one another. We had a few in common, but she added some additional sites that I would not have thought would be a PLN, but I can see how they may be a part of one.

Julian and Allison had their original categories, but had their sites and apps connecting to one another and linking to more than one category. We have a lot of the same PLNs listed. I could have done my design more like theirs because as I mentioned above, I use some of the apps for sharing, but classified as learning and vice versa.

Real Time and Live Virtual Professional Development

Week 3-5

For the last few weeks, I had to participate in four live Twitter chats and four live webinars. I am going to list out the different online events I've attended and a summary of what I notices. 

Live Twitter Chats

1. June 29, 2016      #3rdchat

Summary: This was an awesome first experience in a Twitter chat. They moderator laid out the question and answer process for any new chatters. The chat was based around a book that they are reading for a book club. Although I didn't read the book, questions were based on ideas taken from the book, so my opinion on the topic of 3rd graders was still valid. It was great reading how 3rd grade teachers from across the world would get their communities involved in their classrooms. Of course, each of my answers incorporated some form of tech making the classroom a better place. Not all answers had to do with technology, since it wasn't specifically a technology based chat.

2. June 30, 2016     #games4ed

Summary: This chat was perfect for people who are looking to incorporate games into their classrooms. We discussed the different online personality types and how to reach each student through the use of different types of games. We also talked about ways we could get students involved in games that don't necessarily match their gamer type. Flexible grouping and personality type matching would have to be used to make games work in groups. I made a post about a virtual brag board to post at the conclusion of the game so students can show what they know. After the chat, I had one of the participants message me and ask me to get involved piloting a game he designed specifically for 3rd grade students. I have been in discussion about him and how we can make this work in my classroom.

3. July 7, 2016      #DENchat

Summary: Although I am not a member of Discovery Education Network, I am familiar with their product and was curious about the kind of information I would be able to gather from this chat. As part of the chat, we discussed different DEN strategies and how we use them in class. Based on the DEN archive and short descriptions, I was able to choose strategies that I actually do use in class and comment likewise. At the end of the chat, after tagging @edtechbsu about how I'm in the program but don't have enough tech in my room, the moderator referred me to one of her friends that assists people in grant writing to obtain more technology. We have kept in touch since the chat.

#4 July 7, 2016       #isedchat

Summary: This chat was supposed to be for people who teach in independent schools. Since I used to work for a small charter organization that could fit into the mold of independent, I joined in this conversation. I think I learned the most from this Twitter chat. There weren't many people in the chat which made it so much easier to follow the thread and respond to other people. We talked about new approached in tech ed and a lot of different ways to engage students in the classroom like quizzing with Kahoot, Google quizzes, and See-saw. I still have to do some research on Google quizzes and See-saw, but the other chatters seemed to love them. 

Live Webinars

1. June 30, 2016    The Medal of Honor Character Development Program

Summary: It was very hard to go through this entire Edweb.net webinar without crying. This character study was about Leroy Petry, who was an Army Ranger who sacrificed his own safety for that of his men and received the prestigious Medal of Honor for his dedication and sacrifice. As you can see in the first picture, Ranger Petry has a prosthetic hand due to his bravery in disposing of a grenade. There was a book written about this brave encounter called "Choosing Courage." This webinar could be used to teach students about bravery and the consequences of war. You could link this interview with other wars being studies in ELA or SS.

2. July 7 2016    Apps for Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Other Learning Disorders

Summary: This webinar was given by understood.org. This was all about 12 of the most updated or brand new apps on the market that will benefit students with Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, ADHD, ESL, Dyscalculia, and functioning issues. Some of the apps mentioned are free, some are a one-time payment, and other require subscriptions for services. I wish that I would have known some of these prior to this school year. I had a student with Dyslexia who would have benefit from the use of many of these apps.

3. July 7, 2016    Embedding Music in the Early Childhood Inclusion Classroom

Summary: I was hoping that even though I do not teach Early Childhood, I would be able to get something out of attending this Edweb.net webinar. As it turns out, I did. During the Q & A, my question about having students transition into the Elementary classroom was answered. Basically, for some students, it can be very difficult moving from Early Childhood classrooms into the Elementary classrooms. By adding songs to make moving from one place to another go smoothly, students will be able to follow expectations without yelling or consequences.

4. July 8, 2016     A Roadmap for Women's Leadership

Summary: This was an extremely information Edweb.net webinar about two very strong women and their encouragement for other women to take superior roles within education. Dr. Darlene P. Robles is a Superintendent of a school district in California and has been "shattering the glass ceiling" on the idea of women in traditional educational roles. She has joined forces with other strong women in education to write the book "A Culturally Proficient Society Begins in School." Here she discusses her struggle as a female Latina student and eventually a Latina woman in administration roles.