Privacy and Social Networking

An issue that came up at a work meeting this week was privacy and social networking.

Many teachers (and many students...more on that soon) do not realize that things that they post on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like are in the public domain. Comments, photos, videos and other artifacts (whether or not these items were posted by the teacher or another person) of an "immoral" or unprofessional nature can be grounds for dissmissal.  For example, look at these articles:

• http://www.hrtechnews.com/employee-uses-racial-slur-in-facebook-profile-can-you-fire-her/
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-02-facebook-professors_N.htm
• http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2009/11/13/barrow-teacher-done-in-by-anonymous-e-mail-with-perfect-punctuation/

All internet users need to be careful of what they put on the internet.  But, society holds teachers to a higher standard (that debate not in thei post!) and uncooth comments and artifacts can be harmful.
Once it is on the internet, you can never get it back.  People can save, screen capture, get archived pages, etc.  I always tell teachers (and students) not to write anything they would be ashamed or embarrased about seeing published next to their names in the Washington Post.

In terms of students.....

Students need to learn about social networking and the privacy concerns.  One day the students will be the young adults job searching.  They must know that employers hire internet savy people to do websearches to find out about the type of digital footprint that exists on each job candidate.  Students need to learn early on as internet users about the trail they are forging.
They need education on this topic, not an "internet ban"  - the issue needs to be addressed.

What do you think about this topic, in terms of teachers and/or students?

Modeling Good Adherence to Copyright

It is very important to model adherence to copyright for students.  Often students think because they can do something, that it is okay to do.  I always say, and in fact I have a banner on the wall, "Just because you can does not mean that you should." 

Because yes, the students may know HOW to copy an internet photo and put it in a presentation or report, does not mean that it is legal.  I relate the story to other moral issues that they know, like a physical theft of property. they seem to be able to understand it when it is a more tangible example of theft.

I tell and show them how to get good photos - like from the copyright free sites and how to do searched on Google and Flickr using the Creative Commons.

Of course, most student work in grade 4 - for a China report, for example, will never be subject to a lawsuit, but I feel that the issue is one that could get them in trouble one day, with images, or music or another type of material.  Learning the skills to do this search from the beginning of their internet-rich lives is worth the time it takes in our busy schedules of state mandated testing. It is an opportunity for teaching a knowledge and skill that everyone needs to learn to live in our internet society.

Step 2 of this is to make sure that each TEACHER is modeling this same behavior for the students...this is the more difficult of the 2 tasks! 
 

Lights, Camera, Action!

Using video with students - especially K-6 - can be very challenging. The physical act of recording video on equipment is the easiest it has ever been. However the challenge comes when the pre-recording stage (storyboarding) and post-recording stage (editing) happens.

It is very time consuming to teach children the art of storyboarding in a short amount of time. Similarly for the editing process, it is time consuming.  For example, I can envision the students taking forever to edit a project since they love to play with every effect!

In order to push through these issues, a good designer will be able to see that the issues will arise with K-6 students.  A teacher may use some shortcuts to make these processes quicker for those students for whom this would be an issue.  For example, a teacher could tell the students that they may only use video effects X and Y, for example.

I know what you are thinking, and... Yes, it does stifle the creativity of the students.  However, when there is a time issue, it is better to have a completed project (without a hundred bells and whistles) that can be assessed to see student understanding of the content than to have no project at all!
Similarly with the storyboarding, designers can give a limit to storyboard pages, or to scenes, in order to have the project be shorter.  This may also help student use of critical and creative thinking skills by forcing them to make tough decisions about how the content and story line can fit into a frame.

In uptopia, time is limitless, but in the real world, there are limits.  I am sure there are many more ways to provide students with, yes, "limits", but reasonable limits  in order to combat common traps that the students find themselves in.  If the goal is a finished product to show understanding, I think the "limits" are an acceptable solution.

To Tweet, or not to Tweet...

...that is the question!

today's topic is about a Web 2.0 tool.  I chose Twitter.

Although Twitter is not new to me, the concept of trying Twitter with K-6 students is new to me!
Yes, yes, there would need to be parent permission and so forth, and it may not "work" as intended, but you never know until you try! And admittedly, this is not the best idea I have ever had, but I decided to think about it and brainstorm some ideas.

Ignoring social media such as Twitter is a disservice to today's students. The issue that we all struggle with is to what extent we discuss and use the media. The "problem" with social media like Twitter is that the inappropriatness is unpredictable.  (Example:  CNN.com is reliable for validity and content; "Joe's blog" can be anything that "Joe" decides to write. It can be lies, crazy, rumors, colorful language, curse words, etc.) But putting that aside....my brainstorm...

I can see several uses.   Some can be full Twitter use (tricky...I know) and some can be modfied Twitter use.  (Personally, I think if this is done it would have to be modified, but I shall continue...)

• What if students used the trending topics to determine and analyze trends?
• Students could use Twitter to see how many Tweets a business writes per day (Example: McDonalds) and what they are like (ads, news, ads disguised as news, etc)
• Students could write Tweets to practice the brevity needed for 140 characters or less.
• Students could connect with "keypals" in other areas (I am thinking of a person I know in France - perhaps with his class.  140 words is not an intimidating amount to write in a foreign language)
• Students could look at the Tweets of famous personalities (journalists, musicians, actors, sports players, etc.) to look at so many things (ads, news, self-promotion, etc.)
• Students could look at certain Tweets to determine how "creative" people needed to be to fit the 140 character limit
• Students could look at how many Tweets are sent via smartphones as opposed to PC/web based
• Students could track how/when/frequency of Tweets being Retweeted; make hypotheses as to why

Or, totally out of Twitter, students and teachers could "Tweet" in the classroom only (offline) could be done on a class bulletin board, or in a computer-based way (but closed to others).

Oh sure, I see a lot of problems with turning grade 6 students loose on Twitter, you know, not being "appropriate" for full Twitter use for 11 year olds, but in a modfied way, it could be useful, depending on the unit of study and learning objectives.

Getting Teachers to "Buy in" to Technology

This is week 6, therefore for me a Choose you Own Topic week.

The topic I have selected is teacher buy-in.  Often I have found that it is difficult to get teachers to use the technology in the building. There are more reasons than I have time to type, from not enough time to plan to unease with technology in general.  However, one key aspect is that the teachers will not do something, or eventually do something with deep resentment, if they are MANDATED to do it without a say.  Just like the game we played the first week of class, the teachers need to be consulted, especially the "key" teachers.

Since I know about the buy-in piece, I have recently asked for volunteers, and now formed a group from these volunteers as a Mobile Learning SIG (Special Interest Group). We currently have ZERO mobile devices at school. This group will do the front end research for the school about which apps are the best for grade 4 math, for example.  And in return, when the school has money to purchase mobile devices, the group will have a say in which ones and how they are allocated.

These teachers are motivated and excited, and they will help "sell it" to the rest of the teachers, and the mobile technology bug will spread like a virus as soon as teachers see the others using the equipment and hearing the buzz from the students.

This group is very excited to be the pioneers in the mobile technology world at my school!