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Staff Email: Feel free to use social media

Staff Email: Feel free to use social media

School districts have found themselves in a challenging position over the past several years regarding social media. It often makes school attorneys nervous. Administration, too. The issue is trying to regulate the medium. As a district administrator, I get the challenge. We have certain responsibilities for things like eDiscovery and litigation holds. No fun for anyone who has been part of such an exercise. If you’ve never had the chance to understand what challenges those pose for schools, read this.

I believe, however, that many districts end up taking a hyper-conservative stance on this issue. Social media, when used well, can prove an excellent communication, and even learning tool. Districts concerned about their staff using the service can satisfy the eDiscovery requirement by using a service like this or this.

District also get very nervous about all the “what if” scenarios when thinking about staff, students, and parents interacting online. I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll say it again, interactions between teachers, students, and parents are paramount to the profession. We should seek out all viable options to make these interactions as effective as possible. Districts shouldn’t enact policy that precludes the use of social media. Just be smart, and set policy that reinforces the policy already in place regarding professional practice and behaviors. I’m pretty proud of what our board adopted last year. I think something like this is a great approach.

This past week, we sent out an email to our staff inviting them to use social media and reminding them about guidelines that can help them as they consider using social media in their practice. The letter is below. It’s encouraging to hear the positive reports and see the links from teachers using the medium starting to roll in.

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Good Afternoon,

We’ve had a number of staff inquire about the possibility of utilizing social media to increase communications within the classroom. We welcome you to make use of these effective communications tools, and we’d like to help you successfully implement their use in your classroom with the following guidelines.

The board of education passed policy specifically related to social media last spring. You can read the policy here. The policy essentially reminds staff to keep all interactions between students and parents professional, public, and appropriate. All of the current policy regarding teacher interactions and professional behavior apply when utilizing social media.

Also, if you post any photos of students, please check that they have a media release on file, and do not use their last names associated with their photos. Please read the entire policy to get a complete understanding of the expectations for the use of social media as a learning and communications tool.

If you are using Facebook, please set up a specific fan page for your classroom that parents or students will utilize for communications. Inform your building principal and send me a link to your page, so we can provide you with any support needed.

We encourage you to utilize the disclaimer language found on the district’s Facebook page to inform your audience that you will be actively monitoring and moderating any and all postings on your page. You can find the language here.

Inform an administrator immediately if any inappropriate interactions take place on your site. We will help support and guide you through the proper response to any interaction that is in question.

We also encourage you to connect with others both inside and outside of the district using Twitter. To find out more about the district’s use of Twitter, including a listing of staff currently utilizing the service, click here.

We also welcome you to view our video about Twitter in D123 to find out more about how it all works. https://vimeo.com/36647045

Please feel free to let me know if you have any additional questions about social media and its use in our district. We plan to offer additional educational opportunities throughout this school year to help you better understand and utilize social media with your students and as a communications tool for parents.

A Lack of Critical Thinking

I’m a bit frustrated and discouraged at the general lack of critical thinking taking place in educational technology today.

I’ll give you a couple examples, and I’m sure some people will take the opportunity to disagree with me. Which is good. Because it will provide evidence both for and against why I’m frustrated.

I know I’ve been talking a lot about netbooks lately. Many people have responded to this post I wrote a while back, and I still think it’s an important conversation to have. Because some people are way too caught up in a device that costs way too much to do way too little for our students. Let me break this down.

First of all, people who have responded or written back about this topic saying my focus is too device-centric are wrong and didn’t take the time to read what I said at the outset of the article above. Our goals for our students are to empower them to learn how to learn. We want them immersed in experiences that will afford them the opportunity to develop their skills of critical thinking, problem solving, written and oral communication, collaboration, and creativity. The coined “21st century skills.” And, of course, we want them to continue building a solid foundation of general knowledge. That’s what we want. Now, how do we get there?

When I talk about a netbook running Linux, many people lose their minds. Because it’s not an Apple device. We are getting our HP 1103 for $267. That’s a total cost. We are running ubermix with over 50 applications. The software is rock solid. If something happens to the software on the device, it has a quick restore function that allows us to restore the machine to its original state in less than 20 seconds, while still keeping all the student files. It has full access to the web, and by full access I mean it runs everything like Flash and a completely native and full Google Apps experience that requires no work arounds. It has full access to all cloud services we utilize with students. It has a web cam. It has the LibreOffice suite, along with a wide variety of other applications for a wide variety of uses. It runs Audacity for students to create podcasts. It has a light-weight video editor. You can save and share files from a USB key. It has Scratch to help kids learn problem solving and programming. It has over 6 hours of battery life, and it wakes immediately from sleep. It presents a real, immersive means to address all the 21st century skills we are aiming at.

But, it’s not an Apple. Which some people just can’t stand. I’ve had the same conversations over and over on this, and I just don’t get it. Because people are convinced that spending at least $500 for an iPad, plus the cost of apps, to have a machine that actually does less overall, is the right thing to do. And I know there are many free apps out there, but many of the valuable apps teachers want to use with students come at a cost. Again, let’s review the purpose of why we are selecting a device. Look at that list above. Yes, an iPad can do many of those things, but the netbook can address those skills just as well, and I’d say better, than an iPad can. And, the students are in complete control of the device. They have full admin rights. They aren’t restricted to the experience that we (or Apple) are dictating for them. The netbook is still a better writing experience both for the speed and accuracy of typing and the experience of moving between applications when composing. If the solution to the speed and accuracy issue is to buy the keyboard for the iPad, you can add another $70 to your cost.

So, let’s think critically, and let’s focus on students in grades 3-8 for the exercise. Because as stated above, I do think the iPad is a wonderful device for primary age students, but the netbook is the stronger option for grades 3-8.

You can have a device for $267 that does more to accomplish the goals above, is easier to manage, is easier to maintain, is cheaper to own, and allows students to entirely experiment and learn how to operate. Or, you can have a device for twice the cost that is the opposite. Now before you melt down entirely, yes, I do think the iPad is a compelling device. It’s just not the right tool for the total cost, experience, and goals as set out above.

Let me give another example. MacBooks. I’ve had the same conversation as the one above, only substitute the MacBook for the iPad. At a cost of around $800 for the unit, plus the cost of software licensing, and possibly Apple Care, we’ll assume an average cost of $900. In fact, that is the figure that Jeff Mao states is the price that Maine paid for their MacBooks in a recent refresh of their 1:1. That means for the price of one MacBook, you can get 3.3 netbooks. Let’s discuss.

One quick point of clarification. I think Apple makes incredible hardware. I would rather have my iPhone than any other phone on the market right now. My MacBook Pro is an amazing machine that I love using for video and photo work. I say that to negate the “you’re just an Apple hater” argument. That’s not what this conversation is about. It’s about thinking deeply about what we’re making available to our students and how we are being fiscally responsible in our process.

So, thinking deeply, the netbook allows students to do 90% of what a MacBook can do. At 1/3 the price. That’s important. Because it demonstrates that 90% of the time students would have more machine than they need. So, if we can accomplish the goals stated above 90% of the time with a $267 device, why would we do otherwise? The most immediate response to that question is multimedia work. I agree with that. Video work, in particular, is a much better experience on a MacBook. And, I absolutely want our students to be creating using video. So, we provide two carts of MacBooks at our elementary buildings and six carts of MacBooks at our middle school that teachers can check out when they want to do heavier multimedia projects. We do this understanding that kids aren’t spending the majority of their time on the devices creating videos. If they are, something is wrong with your curriculum.

Let’s break this down a bit further. For our middle school, we have approximately 1,060 students. Equipping each student with a MacBook would be $954,000. Equipping each student with a netbook is $283,020. That’s a difference of $670,980. Is the 10% of what a netbook can’t do worth $670,980? As mentioned, we have six carts of MacBooks at our middle school that are available for projects. These carts were purchased prior to our 1:1 implementation, but even if they hadn’t been, we could have purchased them, with the carts, for $172,000. That would still leave us $498,980. That is a significant figure.

So, people who are telling me that a MacBook is still the right device for this scenario, I really need to see some critical thought in a rationale that justifies that difference. Because we can accomplish all the goals at a fraction of the cost by using a 1:1 netbook and several checkout carts of MacBooks.

And just because this is already a silly-long post. Let’s hit one more example. Device control.

A tech director shared recently that they force all the schools in their district to lock down their student computers to the degree that students can’t change the desktop background or modify the location of any applications. He said they do this because it liberates the teacher. And that’s all backward. Because we want to liberate the students. We give our students full admin control of their netbooks to actually learn how the device works. We encourage them to experiment and get creative and find out what makes the thing work. If they mess it up, we have the quick 20 second restore to get them back up and running. Isn’t that the kind of inquiry we’ve been seeking for our students? Don’t we want them to have ownership over the device? We talk a lot about problem solving and innovation, yet we lock down one of the best conduits to authentically learn these kinds of skills? I don’t get that at all.

So, that’s where I’m at. I know many people are doing great things with iPads and MacBooks and even full laptops running Windows, but I’d argue you could do all those great things at a fraction of the cost with a system that will be more effective and allow students more freedom in their learning.

And, I would imagine, a couple of you might disagree.

ASCD Literacy in a Digital Age Presentation Notes

The following are my notes, reflections, and slidedeck from my ASCD literacy presentation.

I presented this session with Angela Maiers, a true guru in the land of literacy.

Angela and I began our presentation by asking the participants to answer the question, “What is literacy?”  Certainly there has been much written and discussed on this topic, and we explained that our approach to the subject is rooted in communication; specifically, how we input and output through various mediums and modes.

We briefly discussed the work of Luke and Freebody and their Four Resource Model.  We discussed how these four resources work both as we input and output in communication.

We then discussed how important the medium is and how much it has changed.  This change is significant, and that significance is evidenced in videos like this.

We asked the participants to then consider the medium and the mode of communication and which one we most often use as adults.  We typically favor speaking, but what do we require our students to use the vast majority of the time they are working to communicate their learning?  What if we started changing our expectations and removing some of the barriers that trip kids up when they are trying to communicate?  What if we let them tell their stories and demonstrate their learning like this?

We discussed a practical example of the way we traditionally teach literacy by using an example of the book Number the Stars.  We explained how we could be doing so much more with our students and expecting them to dig so much deeper in their exploration of reading.  We showed two videos, and explained how the second led to an incredible learning experience for the entire school based on a comment someone left on the students’ YouTube post.

We wrapped up the session discussing how dramatically the web has changed in recent history, and we discussed the implications for literacy based on this change.  We ended the session with this video and explained how important passion and audience are for our students.

Ascd Engaging Literacy in a Digital Age

View more presentations from Ben Grey.

UbD and Technology

Notes from the session “Understanding by Design and Technology Integration” by Mark Fijor. Presented at the ICE 2010 conference on Friday, February 26.

Wiki link: http://sd25tech.pbworks.com/Understanding-by-Design-and-Tech

Start off with an essential question.  Something that is debatable.

For example, “Can technology really enhance and support standards-based curriculum or is it just a passing fad?”

Determine whether or not technology can enhance and support a standards based curriculum.
Collaborate and identify research tools to complete project.
Determine end product to demonstrate learning.

Use blogs or wikis or online discussion boards to demonstrate learning and wrestle with essential questions.

Fijor’s district uses the Big 6 research method. http://www.big6.com/

Establish the question, identify key search terms, use a resource like Google Scholar to conduct research, and then select end project to demonstrate transfer.

Used Turning Point Anywhere to decide as a group which project format we would use.  Options were Power Point, iMovie, podcast, Prezi, web page.

After the project is complete, students go back and evaluate the presentation against the question and determine if they have to go back and revise their project to answer the essential question entirely.

*My reflection*  It’s obvious that technology can play a big role in the implementation of Understanding by Design.  The most difficult part that I’m not sure we addressed in this session is the process of transfer.  Creating a PPT, iMovie, podcast, Prezi, or web page are not necessarily the best opportunities to create transfer.  Transfer is supposed to happen when you take a skill you are learning and demonstrate the ability to use and apply the skill in an unfamiliar situation.  I believe the beginning of the presentation was strong as we discussed essential questions and research, but the most crucial part of the process, transfer, was lacking a bit.

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