Giving Students Voice - #TCEA15

Notes from Presentation at TCEA 2015
Zach Snow, Instructional Technology Coordinator, Royse City ISD
@ZachSnow

Kevin Worthy, Superintendent, Royse City ISD -@kworthy11 

goo.gl/AyNuGf


Empowering Students, Shaping the Future - Vision statement that came out of Royse City ISD strategic planning.


Start With "Why?"

The most important voice in our educational community is our students. It's also the least heard voice. Students have incredible things they want to accomplish and want to see done, but we often don't take time to listen to them.

Live has changed drastically since most of us were in the classroom as students.


What?

Through strategic planning, Royse City did a number of things to involve people in decision making processes in the district. They had many advisory teams, but felt like they were missing student voice. After year one of planning, they formed a student advisory team.

Students help us keep connected with our Why.

Biggest question was how can we change instruction in the high school by using technology? What device is needed and how should it be used. Members of student advisory team were given Chromebooks to use and to give feedback. Cabinet members come to meetings with the student advisory team so they can hear about the student experience.

Talked with students on the advisory panel about 21st Century learning. We know best practices, but if they aren't connecting with students, they don't matter. Found out in some settings where we think something isn't a best practice, it might be. For example, they found out some teachers were really good at lecture and students liked it. Also found that some students prefer the AP route over dual credit because of the rigor of the learning.


How?

Listen. But just listening isn't enough. We have to respond. What we hear should influence decision making.

Advisory team members - 2 seniors, 2 juniors, 1 sophomore, 2 freshmen; 4 girls, 3 boys

• Students introduced themselves and felt good about being able to give input and be listened to by the superintendent and technology coordinator.
• Love being able to speak on behalf of the student body.
• Students talk about their concerns with peers all the time, but now they have someone who can make changes listening

Social Media and Student Voice

• Monday nights at 8 there is a #StuVoice Twitter Chat

Questions for the Student Panel

Who is on social media?

• Every student! They have Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other stuff. And they check it constantly. 

Who is listening when you're on social media?

• Everyone is listening. It's a powerful tool for communicating.
• Everyone. Adults. Other students. One of the students on the panel was encouraged when she posted about a women's issue and got responses from adults.

Compared to other high schools, Royse City High School has many more followers. Twitter is engrained in the culture at Royse City.

• @RC_StuVoice is run by students.
• Students often look at student organization accounts to see what is going on.
• Twitter acts as a release for students to express themselves and their thoughts. They get to advocate for what is going on in the school. People in the school community pick up on these conversations and sometimes this leads to action.
• If schools don't tell their story, someone else will tell it for them.
• Twitter has also become a part of PD in Royce City. It takes individuals to model this behavior.
• Every campus and principal in Royse City has a Twitter account.
• Modeling is important for digital citizenship,

How do the students feel they've influenced their teachers in the use of social media and technology?

• Feels validated knowing that principals and administrators are listening
• Feels like ideas are being taken seriously because they are seeing results based on the opinions they've shared. For the first time in the educational system, the students feel like they are considered equal instead of "less than" the adults in the system.
• By using Chromebooks they've been able to show teachers that they want to use technology.

Do you want adults to interact with and comment on your social media? Your parents?

• This depends on the student or teenager.
• A couple of the students said they don't care who listens or comments. They are trying to show their accomplishments. Other students, though, might want to just vent.
• One student shares she feels good when her mom or band director favorites or re-shares her posts. It makes her feel important.
• Another student shares he likes to get in conversations on Twitter as long as they stay civil. He disengages if someone gets ugly.

Does knowing your school admins or parents are following them on Twitter make you think twice about what you post or make you want to go elsewhere to post?

• A lot of kids do use Instagram because parents don't use it.
• Student quote - "What you post online reflects who you are. If you aren't comfortable with others knowing it, then you shouldn't be posting it."
• Social media should be used as an outlet for what should be said. It shouldn't be vulgar or immature. 
• People who follow you aren't only people you know.

This is a group of good students. Do you feel you represent marginalized students? Do you represent all corners of your school?

• You're never going to be able to put every opinion out there.
• One student shares that he does leave the meetings and asks others their opinions on what they are talking about. Word of mouth is a powerful way to get input and have discussions. Technology is a tool but it isn't the only way to gather info. 
• One project the panel was involved with was getting students to participate in a survey. They made announcements, posted QR codes. They got over 600 people to participate.
• Students realize they don't represent the opinions of every student in the school.

How are teachers using social media to help students, and how could they use social media to help students?

• Majority is informational. Reminders, accomplishments
• One way it could be used is to post what is coming up lesson-wise for the week so students can better prepare for the week. For example, which textbooks should I bring to school each day?

What advice would you give to parents and teachers of younger students regarding introducing social media to them and using it properly?

• Start kids young even though it might be a little scary. But teach them from the start that they need to keep it positive. They should use it to affirm others, not tear them down.
• Follow your kids on social media

Upcoming Meetings in Royse City ISD

• Bringing in speakers to discuss digital citizenship with parents and students
• Then doing a parent panel for community to ask questions
• Then a student panel for community to ask questions
• All of this leading up to providing a Chromebook for every student in the high school so they have access to information when they need it (staying away from 1:1 terminology; focus is on students driving their learning)

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 All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Connecting Teaching, Learning, & Leadership

Notes from an edWeb.net Webinar 4/28/14
Dr. Joe Mazza
Director of Connected Teaching, Learning & Leadership
North Penn School District


Dr. Mazza just took on his position in December. He is a project manager, promoting connected teaching, learning, & leadership.

He is trying to bring Admin, Educators, Parents, Students, Community, & School Board together in a transparent way. Eighteen schools and 13,000+ students.




Dr. Mazza showed us this video to give an idea of what connected educators can do with Twitter:


Twitter in D123 from OLHD123 on Vimeo.


What does it mean to "be connected?"

• You have taken control of your own learning
• You have made the decision to be a public learner, swimming through social media waters using tools like Twitter, Google+, Linked In, blogs, etc.
• You understand & embrace the fact you are role-modeling for kids with every post, tweet, blog, and digital footprint you make.
• You try to contribute as much as you take from your Personal Learning Network (PLN)
• You are committed to paying it forward with your connectivity, being a resource for others, and building capacity with your own learning community.

Dr. Mazza was the Lead Learner at Knapp Elementary School. (He got rid of the word principal so kids would understand better that we never stop learning!) 

5 Keys to Connected Teaching, Learning, & Leadership

• Transparency as a cultural norm
• Leadership that encourages innovation, edu-risk-taking, and finds ways to say "yes."
• Evolution of policies around connectivity for all.
• Collaborative transparency across stakeholders
• Curation, anytime-anywhere learning opportunities, infusion of PLN-like culture of sharing among organization

Transparency

• Offline AND Online - Offline culture will be AMPLIFIED online. Develop core beliefs everyone can agree on for communication.
• GLASS WALLS > Brick & mortar. Share your story.
• Tweeting minutes, notes, inservice learning events with follow-up posts.
• "The smartest person in the room IS THE ROOM." At the end of the day, it's about all the different perspectives you gain for the best interest of the kids.

Leadership

• Embracing "Lead Learner" mentality.
• Finding ways to "say yes" to stakeholders.
• Role modeling edu-risks, global collaboration, hashtag participation.
• Blurring lines between local and global PLN
• Ex: Use PLN to connect with classes all over the world for mystery Skype, etc

Policy

• Built to protect organization or encourage innovation on the part of all stakeholders?
• Who has a consistent seat at the policy table?
• Seeing through the lens of students, teachers, parents, leaders. How much time does edtech leadership spend gaining perspective?
• Student voice as a key to meeting their evolving needs.

Collaborative Transparency

• Some 2-way communications tools: TodaysMeet, Google Aps, Evernote, Google+, Facebook, PollEverywhere, Livestreaming, Blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram
• Newest collaboration tool for Joe - Voxer
• Voxer a tool that allows you to send audio messages, text messages, and pictures.
• Joe demoed Voxer with educational leader friends of his. They spoke to him through his phone. It's like a walkie-talkie across the Internet!
• He learned about Voxer from students, now uses it personally!

Anytime, Anywhere Learning for All

• Recognizing organizational hashtags, chats for "credit"
• Flipped faculty meetings, learning opportunities for students, staff, & community
• School/District EdCamps & ParentCamps - go to edcamp.wikispaces.com to learn more!
• Online Courses (e.g. Twitter 101 for Parents & Educators) 

Podcasts

• Ideas: PD in the car, to start PLC/Leadership Meetings, PTA/PTO/HSA Mtgs
• #PTchat Radio, #EdTechChat Radio, and more!
• NP-EDcast - Joe captures the great things going on in his school district.

Project Manager for Connected Teaching, Learning & Leadership

• Full job descriptions at leadlearner.com
• Dot connector
• Capacity-builder
• Hand-holder
• Innovation coach
• #nped - North Penn School District, Sharing Our Learning 24/7/365

K-12 Lead Learner Role

• Tweet, RT, Favorite, #FF
• Blog, podcast, vide
• Community forums
• Offer staff dev, webinars, eCourses, Un-conferences
• Curation of teaching, learning, & ledership resources
• Inform, Communicate, Solicit feedback, celebrate successes
• Light "innovation fires"

Every Educator an Innovator - A blog post Joe has coming out soon at Edutopia

• Maximize Today - Be More Effective & Efficient Tomorrow

Questions from the Audience:

• How do you deal with pushback? - Pushback happens for a reason. See it as a part of the process and work through the reluctance.
• Wondering about safety? Tools to ensure only student and parent access? - In Joe's district, they work for transparency. But they do not send out student names on social media. They do get parent permission to share student photos and work on media and are strict to respect what parents want.
• Curation for professional learning - One of Joe's schools uses Storify to collect all of the Tweets sent out with their hashtag and then sends it to families once a week. For families without connectivity, they print it out and send it home. So no one is left out. Meet families where they are.
• Curation for professional learning - also uses Paper.li and sets it up to search for key terms related to school/district goals. This creates an overview for teachers to look at when they have time.

Final thought from Joe: Don't wait to have conversations in your schools and districts about these topics until the summer or September - start having them now!

Link to slides from presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/LeadLearner/moving-away-from-silos-connected-teaching-learning-leadership

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Got Twitter? Make it Better! #TCEA14

At the 2014 TCEA Convention and Exposition, I presented a concurrent session called Got Twitter? Make it Better! I have presented several workshops over the past few years which introduce folks to using Twitter for professional learning, but have also wanted to share other tips and tools that have made my use of Twitter more productive. So I was excited to get to do just that this year!

Here is a quick summary of what I shared. I assume folks reading this already know the basics of using Twitter and how to follow, Tweet, and Retweet. If you aren't comfortable with the basics, you should start with my Twitter for Professional Learning resources before delving into the info presented here.

Below this list, you will find a link to the LiveBinder I used to collect the information and resources for this presentation. One caveat: Don't try all of these tools at one time! I've listed them in the order I think they will be of most benefit. Try them one at a time for a little while. Get a handle on one before you try another. And not all tools will work for  you. That's ok, too! Use what will benefit you, not frustrate you.

Ways to Make Twitter Better

• Use #hashtags when you search for information on Twitter and use them on the Tweets you send out. #Hashtags help categorize Tweets to make it easier to find information that will really benefit you. For example, the #mlearning hashtag will bring up Tweets related to mobile learning, and #txed will bring up Tweets related to Texas education. In the LiveBinder below this list, I have included numerous articles listing popular education #hashtags.
• Participate in a Twitter chat. Twitter chats take place live for approximately one hour every week or every other week and are centered around a specific topic such as digital citizenship or English teaching. During a chat, all participants use the chat hashtag on their Tweets. Specific questions are asked and participants give their answers or generate other questions. Chats can move quickly. You might just want to watch/lurk on your first chat. And use TweetChat.com to keep up with the comments. A comprehensive list of current chats going on in education is included in the LiveBinder below.
• Use Diigo to save all of those links you find on Twitter! You can save links to a Word doc or favorite them in the browser on your computer, but what happens when you are working from another device? You can't get to those resources. Diigo keeps all of your bookmarks online, or "in the cloud", allowing you to access them from any computer or mobile device. It also allows you to categorize your bookmarks using tags for easier searching later. And there are advanced features such as highlighting and note taking on websites. Be sure to access the Diigo resources in the LiveBinder below.
• Hootsuite is a tool for accessing your Twitter account and seeing all of your Twitter action in multiple columns. It also allows you to set up searches on Twitter users or hashtags you want to make sure you keep up with. Give Hootsuite a try, and you might not directly visit twitter.com ever again!
• If you tend to Tweet a lot during certain hours of the day, Buffer may be the tool for you. Buffer will allow you to schedule Tweets at pre-determined times throughout the day. So, when you are working or teaching, your Twitter is still sharing information, and it is broadening your audience, which may in turn broaden the network of people you can learn from. I've connected with educators in the UK and Australia and other countries by using Buffer to send Tweets out when I am working or sleeping.
• You probably already know about Pinterest, but did you know you could do double-duty with it? If you go into your Pinterest settings and link it with your Twitter account, you can Tweet when you pin. That broadens the number of folks who could benefit from what you are sharing.
• Scoop.it is a personal favorite of mine. It is similar to Pinterest in that it allows me to save links connected to one topic, but it has the added feature of allowing tagging of posts and comments/conversation about the resources you share. Scoop.it can also be integrated with your Twitter account so when you save a resource to a Scoop.it board, you can also Tweet it out simultaneously. Scoop.it also learns your interests and suggests more resources for you based on those interests.
• Are there folks you follow on Twitter who are awesome bloggers? When you see they've written a new post, you can't wait to read it? Well, chances are, if you are only following their blog via Twitter, you are missing some posts. That's where Feedly can help you out. Feedly makes it easy to subscribe to blogs and not miss a post. And, if you do get behind on reading, it's easy to just "mark all as read" and start from scratch. When you integrate Feedly with Twitter and/or Buffer, you also have an easy way to share the good stuff you read with your Twitter network. 

LiveBinder of Resources

Visit the LiveBinder below to view the resources I collected for the tools listed above and shared during my live presentation.

Got Twitter? Make it Better! – TCEA 2014

Alternate link to LiveBinder: www.tiny.cc/twitterbetter


What tools do you like to use to improve or streamline your Twitter experience? Please share in the comments!



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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Effective Digital Leadership: Moving Our Schools Forward

Notes from a concurrent session at TASA Midwinter 2014.

Effective Digital Leadership: Moving Our Schools Forward
Don Jacobs, Principal
Anita Scott Elementary School
Royse City ISD
Twitter: @Don_Jacobs
Websites:
     Personal: www.thedigitalprincipal.com
     Campus: scottstaff.blogspot.com

All presentation resources, including slides, are posted at
http://www.thedigitalprincipal.com/2014/01/27/effective-digital-leadership/

Don referenced Eric Sheninger's new book, Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times, as inspiration for his presentation.

Communications

scottstaff.blogspot.com - Blog which Don uses to communicate with his staff. Emails get deleted or misplaced. Can also be accessed from anywhere that you have internet access, not just when you are connected to your school/district network.

Blog also sets admins up in order to be able to do flipped learning with their staff. Post video or article you want staff to go over prior to a meeting, then have them discuss during your faculty meeting. Saves time in the meeting and lets meeting time be more productive.

http://weprincipal.blogspot.com - Melinda Miller, Principal in Missouri who uses flipped learning with her staff. She is in her second year of this. She talks about mistakes she's made and what she's learned from them! Don showed a video Melinda created for the start of the school year. What was cool about this video is Melinda talked about the tools she used to create the video so her teachers would know how she did it!

Public Relations

In Royce City ISD, every campus has a Twitter account and shares reminders with parents and students via Twitter.

Remind 101 - Free texting service for teachers to text students without sharing phone numbers. Must have an education email account to set up an account. Don uses it to text his staff on important topics that can't wait for everyone to check their email.

Branding

Other people are talking about our schools and teachers and students. Schools and districts need to be part of that conversation. We need to be using social media to tell people about the positive things that are going on in our classrooms and schools!

Professional Growth

Don uses Twitter for a professional learning network. He is constantly in conversation with people about what is going on in his job, growing with them and learning from them. He can't imagine doing his job without his Twitter PLN. Don is trying fresh ideas on his campus because of connections he's made with Angela Myers on Twitter.

Follow hashtags on Twitter like #txed, #txlege, #digilead, #txidea, #txeduchat

edweb.net - Professional social network for the education community - watch their webinars and webcasts live or in recording.

Edcamps - unconferences where there aren't traditional keynote speakers or vendors. Educators come together to learn about topics they want to on a given day. Agenda is created the day of the conference. Royse City is hosting EdCamp Awesome in Feburary 2014.

Student Learning

Todd Nesloney, 5th Grade Teacher, Waller ISD - PBL and Flipped Classroom - www.toddnesloney.com. Was invited to White House as part of White House Champions of Change initiative. Gave his incoming 4th graders the 4th grade Math STAAR w/out the multiple choice answers, and they bombed it. Used flipped learning to focus on their areas of need and had a 97% pass rate on the 6th grade STAAR.

Productivity

Don uses Google Drive to collaboratively create documents with his colleagues. Ex: Creating elementary student handbook. Don't have to worry about emailing copies back and forth.

Don also uses Evernote to keep his notes in the cloud and access them from his phone, tablet, laptop, or computer. Evernote searches the text in images which is helpful when you can't remember everything on a business card. Also uses Evernote to type notes during teacher observations. He can record audio of what's going on in the classroom and take pictures of student work, classroom layout, etc.

Dropbox also keeps Don organized. He hasn't carried a flash drive in three years!

Digital Leadership

There are new tools born almost every day, and you can't keep up with all of them! Pick one or two tools and get comfortable using them.

Administrators are trying to lead into innovation and make sure schools are educating kids to think and create and work outside the box. If admins want teachers and students to be like this, then administrators need to model it in front of them. Teachers will respond to modeling.

It is a difficult challenge and it is not comfortable. But after a while it becomes easier.

www.thedigitalprincipal.com - Don's personal blog. 

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Resolve to Promote Truth

Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com

OK educators. It's time to put the skills you have to work with ALL of the people in your lives, not just the ones you call your students. This may also include yourselves.

It's time to promote self-restraint. And critical thinking. And research skills.

It's time to be OK with gently correcting even the adults in your life.

Why this call to action? Because I firmly believe that until we can promote the idea that ALL of us, regardless of age, are responsible for conducting ourselves wisely online, convincing our young people to be responsible digital citizens will be an uphill, frustrating, and in the long run a losing battle.

An area where I believe we can easily make an impact is in the area of promoting the truth. Stated another way, let's resolve to

• Not pass along information without doing some quick fact checking. 
• If you don't have time to fact check, just don't pass the info along.
• Let people know when they are sharing incorrect information and ask them to delete and post a correction.
• In the process, teach others how to do their own quick fact checking.

An Example of How to Promote Truth

Following through on a resolution to promote truth is not all that difficult. Here is a scenario which played out for me earlier this fall:

• A friend posted an address on Facebook where people could send cards to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C.
• Thinking it was a good idea, but wanting to be sure it would truly work, I went to my favorite rumor checking website, snopes.com, and searched for Walter Reed cards for soldiers and quickly found that the address shared by my friend would not work.
• I then posted a comment on my friend's Facebook post, sharing that the information was inaccurate and that Snopes is a good place to check on these types of things before sharing. Then, I gently suggested she might want to take it down and let the person who shared it with her know as well. (She did take it down!)

That's how easy it was. Instead of clicking Share without thought, I took about five extra minutes to confirm that what was being said was true. Hopefully, anyone else who saw this play out will  hesitate the next time they are about to share information and take a moment to check.

Develop Your Suspicion Muscle

One thing we all need to do is become more suspicious of the things we read online, especially the ones that are "feel good" (like sending Christmas cards to soldiers) or "cries for help" (like missing children alerts). Often these tales started out true. Many missing children posts began as truth. A lost stuffed animal's journey began as truth, but I continue to see the picture of the "missing" lion popping up on Facebook, even though the story has already had its happy ending.

Here are some of the types of posts that almost immediately make me pause and verify before sharing:

• Reports of the death of anyone famous
• Requests to help find missing people
• Photographs circulating during and after disasters (Just look at all the pics supposedly related to Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy. Anyone ever heard of Photoshop?)
• Any report of a scandal
• Stories/photographs that support a specific political point of view. (Even the views I agree with. Especially those! Why would I want to damage a cause I believe in by spreading falsehoods?)

It is hard to categorize everything that gives me pause, which nowadays is almost anything. But whenever I experience a mental "Hmmm..." alert after seeing something online, especially when social media is the first place I see it, I

• Head to Google where I specifically look for news references if it is a current event topic. And I try to find verification on two or more sites.
• And/Or I go to snopes.com if it seems to be something that might have been around for a while.

Whether I verify the information or not, if I choose to correct or reshare, I always include a link to a reliable source with the information. Again, hoping to model appropriate sharing for my online connections.

I Hate to Say it, but We Need to Trust Less

In the digital age, it is too easy to spread inaccurate information. Many of us who remember getting information pre-Internet have not made the mental transition from the days of print media and the days when news came to us only through networks on television. We trusted that what we read and heard from journalists had been verified. Frankly, many people, regardless of their age, are just gullible, assuming if it's online, it's true.

Today, anyone is capable of being a "journalist," of sharing the latest "news." People with zero journalistic training from your high school friend on Facebook to a social media specialist hired by a news or pseudo-news organization. Some of those specialists prioritize getting visits to their site and shares of their information far above sharing accurately. So it benefits us and those in our circles if we treat the information we encounter with healthy suspicion, and verify before we share.

Who's With Me?

As I write this, one year is ending and another is beginning. But no matter when you are reading it, I hope you will join me in a resolution to promote truth. 

I would love it if you would share in the comments below your thoughts on this topic, ways you verify information which finds you online, or information you shared a correction on because you found it to be false. It will be encouraging to know we have partners in the truth crusade! :-)

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

EdTechSandyK's Top 5 Posts of 2013

Graphic Used With Permission

On January 1st this year, I took time to look over the top five posts on my blog from 2012. It was interesting to see which posts received the most hits, as I assume "most hits" = "resonated the most with readers." Because this was a helpful exercise for me at the end of 2012 / start of 2013, I thought I'd give it another go as 2013 ticks away its final hours and 2014 looms on the horizon.

So, I bring you (insert dramatic drum roll) the top five most visited (and hopefully read!) posts on my blog from 2013 as tracked by Blogger:

1. How to Decode a Tweet, 1/7/13 - I originally wrote this post and created the graphic for it because I needed it for a Twitter for Professional Development workshop that I was going to be co-leading the next month. I had used someone else's similar post in previous workshops, but Twitter had changed its layout enough that I felt an update was prudent. Little did I know this would become my most popular post of the year! I also learned a lesson from this post: If you go to the trouble to customize a graphic, put your name on it somewhere. I've seen the graphic passed around and re-used in numerous places over the last year without any credit or link to the original post provided.
   
   
2. iPad Basic Training for Teachers, 8/30/13 - After spending a spring and summer immersed in designing training for my school district's "iPads for Teachers" initiative, I thought it would be beneficial if I shared our process and online materials. I was right! In addition to receiving the second highest number of visitors on my blog, this post also generated requests for permission to link to the materials. In looking back over this post, I now realize that it is almost 2014, and we still need to get the materials updated to iOS 7 information. I could be discouraged by that, but instead, I'm going to look at it as job security and a chance to further practice my video tutorial making skills!
   
   
3. 10 Killer iPad Projects Students Will Love, 6/24/13 - This post is comprised of notes I took at an ISTE 2013 concurrent session. So, no original work for me, but a chance to further spread the great ideas and resources which Holly Dornak and Jessica Dyer of Lamar CISD took time to share with us at the conference.
   
   
4. My Favorite Videos for Describing Educators' Professional Use of Twitter, 10/20/13 - I talk about Twitter. A lot! And I am interested in others' experiences with learning via this microblogging tool. As a result, I am constantly saving resources that I can turn to when it is time to create a presentation or just shoot a link to someone to say, "Hey, this is what I'm trying to tell you about." After seeing a wonderful new video in October created by teacher and edtech graduate student Victoria Olson, I was inspired to compose a post mentioning some of my all time favorite Twitter explanation videos. The idea obviously appealed to the online audience, propelling this late-in-the-year post to the fourth most visited on my blog.
   
   
5. Your Facebook Privacy is YOUR Responsibility, Not Your Friends'..., 1/13/13 - Although I tried really hard to tone it down a bit, as I reread this post I can sense the frustration I was feeling when I wrote it. As an advocate for digital citizenship for people of all ages, I admit to becoming easily irritated by the inaccurate information that is constantly propagated online, and my patience in this area continues to erode. When I hit certain levels of frustration, they often get worked out in a blog post. Hopefully, between my moments of venting, some true enlightenment results for anyone who takes time to read. I'm soothed by the fact that this made my top five most-read list for 2013.

Another year has sped by. (They really do go faster each year!) As I look back on 2013, I see an iPad and social media focus in my top five posts. Much like 2012. Mobile learning and online connection continue to dominate my thoughts and the interests of my readers. Will 2014 bring any significant changes? I look forward to finding out with you!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Grow Your Twitter Network With a Spiffed Up Profile

Are you an educator just getting started on Twitter? Or have you been on Twitter for a while and would like to increase your ability to connect to others? From my experience on Twitter, here are a few simple tips about your profile that might help you connect to more people. The more people who notice you, the more folks you have to learn from! (Not to mention that more folks will benefit from your knowledge, too!)

1. Choose a username/handle that tells who you are and describes what you are about - For example, I picked the username EdTechSandyK because my main reason for being on Twitter was to connect with others who are interested in educational technology.

2. Make sure your username is easy to spell - I purposefully did NOT use my last name in my handle, because it gets misspelled by everyone. Try not to get too creative with your spellings. Imagine the number of times you might have to spell it out for others who have to say, "How do you spell that?", and that should help you keep it simple. :-)

3. Keep your username to 10 characters or less if possible - I've read this in multiple articles over the past four years that I've been on Twitter. It helps when people re-tweet you. Of course, I didn't know this when I first signed up, so my username breaks this rule.

4. Keep it professional - If you really want to connect for mostly professional purposes, make sure you keep your username (and profile) professional too. "Sexyprof" might be, well, attention getting, but it will also keep you from being taken seriously.

5. Hatch the egg! - If you keep the egg as your profile picture for too long, you run the risk of being mistaken for a spammer. Put a headshot of yourself on your profile or at least an avatar or something that represents you. Your Twitter profile picture will wind up all over the Internet in the many services that Twitter users use to copy, curate, and repost Tweets. So be comfortable with the pic you choose, but hatch the egg!

6. If you choose to do a header picture, make sure your bio and other info is still readable. - The header picture is the larger pic that displays behind your profile picture and bio information. If you pick something that is too busy or the wrong color, it can make your profile difficult for others to read.

7. Fill out your bio! - I have a Twitter pet peeve - EMPTY BIOS! When someone new follows me, I want to know who they are and where they are from and what they do. It helps me determine why they might be interested in what I have to say.  I also want to know those things about people I'm considering following. Sure, I can go to someone's timeline and figure some of that out if they've Tweeted much. But I shouldn't have to be such a detective. When people connect, they want to know a little about each other. At least say what you teach or what position you hold. You don't have to include your school or district if you don't want to. Also, add your location (at least your country; provinces/states/etc. are also nice to know) and a link to a website that represents you if you have one.

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Have I given you some ideas for updating/tweaking your profile a bit? If so, then you'll be happy to know that Twitter has recently made it super easy to edit your profile. Just go to your Twitter profile on a computer, log in to Twitter, and click Edit Profile right there under your profile header. You can change anything except your username/handle right from your profile page. (See screen shot to the right.)

OK, fellow and future Tweeps, I'll see you, and your new and improved Twitter profile, on the 'Net! :-)

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P.S. - If you found this post interesting, you might also like my LiveBinder full of resources to get you started using Twitter for Professional Learning.

How to Decode a Tweet

When you first start using Twitter, one of the things you have to figure out is how to decode Tweets. What does each part represent? What does it mean when a word starts with a #?

Below is a Tweet as it might be displayed on the Twitter website when viewed on a computer. Note that not all Tweets might include all of these exact attributes. If you are using an app or third-party service like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to read your Tweets, they might look slightly different, but the parts will still be there somewhere. Scroll on down under the sample Tweet to see brief explanations of the parts! (Accurate as of the time of this post. Twitter has a habit of rearranging these things once in a while!)

1. Avatar - A photo or graphic which represents the person or company sending the Tweet. If you click the avatar, an abbreviated version of the Tweeter's profile will display, and from it you can visit their complete profile if you want to know more about them.

2. Tweeter's Name - In theory, this is the real name of the real person behind the Tweet. Some Twitter users decide to use their username or another unique name here. It depends on what they set up in their profile when they signed up for Twitter.

3. Twitter Username/Handle - The name a person is known by on Twitter. Some users use their real name again here. Others, like Mark Warren in the Tweet above, use a representative name. In this case, Mark chose @MagisterWarren, representing the fact that he is a Latin teacher.

4. Shortened URL - A large number of Tweets include links to websites the Tweeter feels will be useful to their followers or which explains more about what they are saying in the Tweet. URLs will almost always be shortened in some way to help leave more room for other information within the 140 character Tweet limit.

5. Tweet Text - The meat of the Tweet. All of the text in black is part of the "message" the Tweeter is conveying.

6. Hashtag - Hashtags help categorize the topic of a Tweet on Twitter. Using them can help others who are not following you find your content, and they help your followers quickly scan their Tweet streams to find topics of interest to them. Occasionally, hashtags are used #justforfun to make a comment. Hashtags are very useful but can be mysterious at first. I encourage you to learn more about them and use them. The best explanation of hashtags I've ever come across can be found here. 

7. Time and/or Date of Tweet - This just lets you know how long ago the Tweet was sent out. After 24 hours, it will display a date. (NOTE: You can also click the Time/Date of a Tweet to be taken to a unique web page where the Tweet "stands alone". This will allow you to make a link to a specific Tweet if you wish, like this: Click to read a past Tweet of  mine.)

8. RT - Indicates a "Re-Tweet", or re-posting of someone else's Tweet. Third party Twitter clients like Hootsuite make it easy to send out RTs in this way. On the Twitter website itself, if you use the Retweet feature, it will simply repost the Tweet "as-is" out to your followers, with no RT symbol in front. Sometimes, RTs are also indicated by quotation marks around the entire Tweet. Multiple possibilities - with time, you'll come to recognize them all!

9. Mention of Another Twitter User - When an "@" is placed in front of a word in a Tweet, Twitter assumes you are mentioning another Twitter user. You can click on that user's name/handle and see their latest Tweets.

It's good etiquette to mention the original Tweeter of a Tweet in an RT, as was done in the example above. Sometimes, you might start a Tweet with a mention of someone's handle to let them know you are speaking directly to them. If you do that, the Tweet still appears on your public page, but only shows up in the timeline of the person addressed and anyone who follows both you and that person. If you want to mention a user but want all of your followers to see it, make sure you put their name somewhere other than the start of the Tweet. See examples below.

10. Click to Reply - Click the Reply link to reply back to a Tweet you found interesting. It helps the recipient if you reference the original Tweet. For example "Really enjoyed the story on BYOD. Thank you for sharing!" instead of just "Great story. Thanks!"

11. Click to Retweet - Is there some great information in that Tweet you just read that your followers would benefit from? Click the "Retweet" link to spread the learning!

12. Click to Favorite - You can keep a list of Favorite Tweets. Maybe there is a link to an article you don't have time to read right now. "Favorite" it, then go to the Me page on your Twitter profile to access it later. You can then click Favorited to "unfavorite" the Tweet when you are done with it.

13. Advanced Options - Currently includes the ability to email a Tweet to someone (maybe if you do that often enough you'll convince someone to join Twitter) or copy embed code to embed a Tweet in another website (embedding allows the Tweet to remain "live" in the website, so people can reply, retweet, etc, directly from the site).

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Ok, there you have it! Probably more than you ever wanted to know about how to decode a Tweet! If you are new to Twitter, or even if you've been on it for a while, I hope this has helped you become more comfortable with the platform. Happy Tweeting!

Shoutout to The Connection blog. I used this Anatomy of a Tweet post in a workshop I taught last year, and based on its model, decided to write an updated version.

If this post interested you, you might also be interested in the resources I've put together in a LiveBinder on Twitter for Professional Learning, and another blog post I've written called Grow Your Twitter Network with a Spiffed Up Profile.

Real-World Consequences of What We Post On Social Media

Do We Understand We're Shouting to the World?
Photo Used With Permission Under a Creative Commons License

Wow! Talk about a chance to really teach students about the consequences of what they post via social media.

This post on Jezebel.com captures some no-holes-barred racist Tweets sent out in the wake of President Obama's re-election. The fact that anyone holds these views is unfortunate, that they would openly spew such hate disturbing, and the fact that most of them appear to be young people heart-breaking.

What's intriguing to me, though, is the discussion that is going on underneath the post. A commenter looked up many of the young people whose racist Tweets are featured and posted their names and schools. He or she then encouraged others to contact their current schools or colleges which have awarded them athletic scholarships. Several people have posted about their attempts to contact the students' schools!

If you can stand the language, or maybe take some screen shots of a few things and blur the most offensive words in the Tweets and/or comments, you could turn this into a timely discussion of how we have no control over where our online postings wind up as well as the real-world consequences of what we post online.

You could also encourage conversation around the debate going on in the comments over whether it is ethical to report these students to their schools or not.

What say you? Could you or would you use this in a class lesson? Do you think those who are reporting the students are doing the right thing? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks to @corinnew whose Tweet brought this story to my attention and @marybethleeybnp whose follow-up Tweets (#1 & #2) inspired me to write this post.

Interview on Down the Hall Podcast

Graphic Used Under a CC By-SA 2.0 License

I recently had the privilege of being invited to be interviewed on the Down the Hall podcast. Down the Hall  is produced by the External Programs and Learning Technologies (EPLT) department of the University of British Columbia. I have networked on Twitter and on this blog with one of the podcast hosts, Dave Roy (@UBCMET), a Senior Program Assistant for EPLT, and it was Dave who asked me for an interview after hearing me in another recent podcast appearance.

It was exciting to be part of a program whose purpose is to reach an audience including "EPLT/Faculty of Education stakeholders (students, prospective students – especially at the graduate level, faculty members, prospective academic and/or social media contacts, and those interested in educational technology & social media in education)."

Dave and I had a great conversation, and I hope you will take time to listen to Down the Hall Episode 36: Developing the Practice. (Special "guest" appearance by one of my dogs thrown in as a bonus! Kudos to Dave for really good editing on that one!)

One aspect that made taking part in this podcast enjoyable for me was the fact that Dave provided questions for me ahead of time, so I could think through the ideas I would like to share. Even though I got to think about my responses prior to the interview, it did not take away from the natural flow of the professional conversation we had, because neither of us strictly followed a script.

Below, I am posting the questions Dave sent me, and the notes I made for myself to refer to during the interview. You'll see if  you listen to the podcast and read my notes that what I said and what I wrote don't exactly match. You'll also see there are three questions, but in the podcast, we only discussed the first two. As I've admitted several times before, I am long-winded!

I hope you enjoy listening to and reading this information. And that you will share any thoughts it provokes in the comments.

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Q1.    One of the areas of interest you mention in your bio on your blog is “educator professional development,” and many of the things you talk about on your blog and on Twitter are about resources for teachers to use in their classroom. How important of a resource are various social media for doing this? How can teachers enhance their own development by forming networks online and sharing resources? 

·        Social media can be a very valuable source of information and professional development for educators. What I love about it is it is a constantly flowing stream of knowledge, and you can drink from it as much and as often as you are comfortable doing so. And there are multiple entry points – Twitter is a very lively example, but educators can follow other professionals on Facebook, or find teachers with similar interests using tools such as Pinterest, Diigo, Scoop.it, or the innumerable blogs written by practicing educators. At first, they may just “lurk” and watch what others are doing, but eventually they will try some of the things they are exposed to and hopefully contribute back to others’ learning. 

·         Teachers who make efforts to learn from their colleagues online through social media are nurturing their own continuous learning and growth, and adding to their professional practice in this way is of great benefit to their students. No longer do we have to wait for just the right workshop to come along or attend a great staff development experience in the summer only to have it fade in importance by the time school starts. In the age of social media, I can be exposed to a new teaching technique or tool online, ask questions about it, and try it out as soon as tomorrow with my students. I can then share my efforts back out to my online network and get feedback on what went well and what I can continue to improve. Another teacher may learn from and enhance what I just tried today in their classroom tomorrow.

Q2.    You have 19 years of experience in education. How has the increasing use of digital technologies changed the K-12 classroom in your opinion? In your opinion, does it make it even more important for teachers to work on their own development to stay ahead of the curve?

·         First I need to point out that the quality and quantity of digital technology use varies widely from classroom to classroom, school to school, and system to system depending on the resources available and the quality of staff development that is provided.

·         But in places where digital technologies are being used well, teachers and students have unprecedented access to tools and information which make differentiation in instructional delivery and the ability to demonstrate learning through product creation far more possible than ever before. Teachers can now find text, visuals, audio, even simulations, for delivering required content to students to reach the multiple learning styles in every classroom. In places with access to easily updatable websites or learning management systems, they can even provide the content for students to consume or study at home, then work one-on-one or in small groups in the classroom the next day to customize the learning of the content for each child.

·         Complimentary to the ability to deliver content in a wide variety of mediums, students with access to digital technologies can demonstrate their learning by creating products using text enhanced with graphics and video, collaborating on blogs and wikis, designing web pages or apps. The possibilities are staggering. The digital K-12 classroom is no longer confined to the four physical walls surrounding it. When the resources available are leveraged properly, the resources for learning and the audience for witnessing student outcomes are literally without limit. And the exciting thing is no one teacher has to be an expert in all of these areas – the web gives access to teachers, both informal and formal, all over the world, and students and teachers can co-learn together.

·         I believe it’s vastly important for teachers to continuously develop themselves to stay ahead – or more accurately with the curve. The curve moves so fast now that staying ahead is almost impossible. But continually keeping up with what others are doing, tweaking their ideas to work in your situation and trying something new, is extremely doable with all of the information available through networking online with other educators and education entities.

Q3.    We’re familiar with blended and online learning at the post-secondary level, with UBC being heavily involved in implementing such courses with programs like the Master of Educational Technology. How do you think blended and online learning can benefit students at the K-12 level? What form would this kind of learning take?

·         At K-12 there are multiple ways blended and online learning can benefit students. Online learning can bring otherwise unavailable courses to students who are perhaps in smaller schools or systems that do not have capacity to provide instruction in on-site subjects like certain foreign languages. For example, in Canada you may have an overabundance of French teachers and we may have numerous Spanish teachers here in Texas. Students in each of our areas can benefit from instruction half-way across the continent. Similarly, homeschooled students can take higher-level courses that might otherwise be beyond their resources. Online learning can also benefit students who are not successful in the regular classroom. I’ve read about successful initiatives which bring students into schools to work in a self-paced online environment with certified teachers available onsite to assist with questions when face-to-face assistance is needed.

·         Blended learning also offers opportunities for students in more traditional settings to achieve at higher levels. We have had a few teachers in my district work online discussion boards into their traditional classrooms. They report that students who are less likely to participate in class discussions often put more effort into online posts. They also are thinking about learning outside of the traditional school day. One of my favorite examples was a high school English course I had access to mostly for technical support purposes. My email box was getting hit by discussions of Hamlet at 11 pm and 6:30 am. What teacher does not want to see that kind of engagement in students outside of the hour or so they see them during the day?

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Whom Do You Network With on LinkedIn?

If you are active on the professional networking site LinkedIn, I have a question for you.

Whom do you connect with on Linked In?

The reason I'm asking is because my understanding of LinkedIn is it's a network primarily aimed at highlighting your professional experience and abilities. By that understanding, the people I connect with on there should be folks who know me well enough personally to be able to speak to my character and/or ability to execute my professional duties.

Recently, I've started getting requests to connect from people whom I recognize from Twitter but with whom I have never had interaction on a level which makes me feel I truly "know" them, nor do I feel they "know" me well enough to speak to my character or job abilities. If I were asked to recommend them for a job, I would not feel comfortable doing so, nor would I ask for a recommendation from them.

I have some exceptions to my personal rule for whom to connect with. I am connected on LinkedIn with a few folks whom I haven't seen in person in years, even going back to college. So if asked about them, I would have to speak to what I knew of them several years ago. But at least there was an in-person connection at one time.

Am I looking at LinkedIn too narrowly? Or am I being true to its original intent?

Whom do you connect with on LinkedIn, and why? I would really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

Create an Interest List for Professional Learning on Facebook

I was asked to be a guest this evening on the Tightwad Teacher podcast. The topic was The Connected Teacher. The podcast was live streamed, but it will also be edited and posted in final format next week.

In prep for the podcast, I created a little tutorial on how to create an interest list on Facebook to leverage Facebook for professional learning. I've blogged about Facebook for professional learning in the past, but I think the recent addition of interest lists to Facebook makes this endeavor even easier.

Below is the tutorial. I am also just learning to use Camtasia, so please excuse any blips! If this tutorial is helpful to you or gives you any other ideas for extending learning via social media, please share in the comments. Thanks!

Their Space: Educating Digitally Ethical Teens #sxswedu #theirspace

Notes from SXSWedu 2012 Concurrent Session


Kalmus (@TedKalmus) & de Haan (@TeachWithIntent) (TeachWithIntent.com)

Storify Archive of this Session (also embedded below): http://is.gd/ethicalyouth

Students like to track themselves online when shown how to do that. About three years ago presenters started to notice a shift to more social media use by middle schoolers. Had questions about how to deal with 10 and 11 year olds and their concrete thinking.

20% of the 6th graders they surveyed in their Seattle school had Facebook accounts. By high school, this rises to 90%. Smart phones also have a high adoption rate.

One of the things they think about is moving kids into a position of reflective growth - how to they see themselves as learners and what is the environment I'm moving in like? Then add an ethical layer - how do I operate in these environments. Help kids leverage all of the resources available to them as they assess where they are and what they want.

When students move outside of the classroom, they have to apply what they learn. That's why meta-cognition is so important.

Time and space do not have the same meaning for kids today that they do to us. The internal sense of change adolescents have is still out of sync with what is really happening around them.

2009 - Meeting of the Minds - important work from Common Sense Media on perceptions of social media ethics.

Cyberbullying is a difficult concept to define for adolescents, but if you talk about "flaming" or "posing", you can have more meaningful interaction. We latch on to what we recognize.

de Haan found a video via a Google Alert of a video shot on a school field trip of students setting a bush on fire, including students jumping over and through it. Also includes footage of teachers intervening, saying things they probably would not want on camera. Students also shared their names online.

These same students would tell you that at school they would never post their full names or identifying information. But that applies to school for them. It's not generalized to their outside of school behavior.

What were you thinking? - That's how we as adults react. We have to process the cognitive dissonance and lack of transference.

Kids between 11 and 14 go through the greatest period of brain development after age four. The parts of the brain that deal with planning and cause and effect are firing for the first time. They often refer to trial-and error tactics to figure things out, much like they did when they were toddlers. There is often superficial evaluation of online communities. Subject to a lot of polling feedback.

They are unaware of the digital tattoo - the permanence of data. This permanence can be a positive thing. It often has to be set before the students in very concrete ways to help them process what they are doing. The gaffes they commit in early teens can set the stage for what they do when they are 16, 17, etc.

A woman who works for a company that offers memberships to Tweens for movie editing noted that when they suspend accounts for inappropriate use, parents often step in and question the company's actions.

Presenters point out that parents have to be brought in on these conversations and helped to understand the consequences of online activity. In their school, they now have 8th graders who do presentations for parents (after a great deal of training).

If you ask a 10 year old if they have a digital identity, they will say no, even if they've been on Club Penguin. We are creating a division that does not exist for them. Digital identity is part of their total identity, not separate.

Young people still fallaciously think that the sender controls the message and that misrepresentation does not equal lying. Adults think their digital representations should line up with who they really are. Students are still finding their identities, so this idea does not resonate with them.

Digital Identity: A representation of self created by self or others, definded through accessible digital information, as perceived by a viewer (self or other).

Can you move fluidly back and forth between who you are online and who we are in real life? Teens have the opportunity and onus of branding themselves online.

We don't stop teaching kids about driving they day they get their driver's licenses. Students with the healthiest online identities have ongoing conversations with their parents, who are mentoring them as they cultivate their online presence.

Adults in children's lives need to be managers, coaches, and mentors.

A practical thing these educators have done with students: give them real world scenarios and have them classify as if someone's actions were being intentional or unintentional and whether it had a negative impact or positive impact. Ex: Your mom posts an old photo of you running naked through a sprinkler. Intentional to hurt? Unintentional? Negative or positive impact? This answer varies depending on the student. Same question can be asked in real-world situations, like sexting. (Photo of classification grid used with students: http://yfrog.com/kk1lmalj)

Another example: Use media to talk about perception, reality vs. unreality. Examples: Ender's Game, The Hunger Games, Inception, Matrix.

Navigating in the public space takes practice, reflection, and will include missteps.



Below is the online archive of this presentation:

Trying to Ban Facebook is Not the Answer...

Image Source

It is our professional opinion that you get your child off Facebook. -  From Pinecrest Preparatory Middle-High Administration Letter to Parents, February 22, 2012

When I first read and watched a news story about this Florida charter school's letter to parents encouraging them to get their kids off of Facebook because of the problems social media activities were causing during the school day, it got me thinking. I wondered what would make a school even venture this request in our social media saturated society. And I remembered this wasn't the first time I had heard of such a request from school administration. What is going on here?

Looking into the Pinecrest situation further, I read their complete letter to parents, posted on their website. Based on the strong nature of the letter, the school is obviously facing some difficult issues. It is hard to cultivate the positive environment required for teaching and learning if social issues are causing continuous disruption. You and I can sympathize. We would not want to try to teach nor have our own children/students learn in such an environment.

These problems are not unique to Pinecrest. This school just happens to be in the spotlight right now because of the approach they have chosen to take.

But is asking parents to get their children off of Facebook the answer?



Even if They All Left Facebook

Used Under Creative Commons License

Let's assume for a moment that in a perfect world, 100% of Pinecrest parents buy in to this request from administration, and 100% of the students comply with their parents' wishes and close their Facebook accounts. Here are some possible outcomes I envision:

• A tool has been removed, but the underlying behavior patterns have not been dealt with. Students continue their negative social interactions but simply use other mediums. (The Pinecrest letter acknowledges this possibility when it mentions negative aspects of texting, but does not call for a ban on texting plans or cellphones.)

• Looking for other ways to connect, students may turn to any of the less popular or lesser used/known social networking sites that exist out there. Not to mention online games and chat rooms. This may make their activity even more difficult to monitor for parents and the school. At least most parents and school faculty/staff are on Facebook and have an awareness of how it works and what is going on there.

• There are also plenty of free sites where students can set up websites and blogs. Tumblr is an example of a blogging site which is extremely popular with teens.

• Students have been cruel to each other and bullied each other since the dawn of schools. And schools have had to deal with the fallout of these interactions. I myself was picked on in middle school by a group that put me in awkward situations at school and used the telephone to call and harass me. The tools of the time were different, but the actions were the same. If parents and schools do not work together on character education, setting expectations, using inappropriate student actions as teachable moments, and enforcing consequences for specific incidents, ultimately nothing will change. Students will find other avenues for their social behavior, both good and bad.

The Realistic Alternative: Model, Supervise, & Create Positive Opportunities for Social Media Use

Used Under a Creative Commons License

We all know the reality: Pinecrest students on the whole will not leave Facebook. A few might for a while, but most will eventually go back. With or without the knowledge of their parents and teachers. Facebook is the way the vast majority of us communicate with each other. Facebook and social media are not going away. If you are concerned about how your children or students are using social media, you must work with them to build critical skills they need to function in today's world and the world of tomorrow. 

None of the suggestions below are quick fixes, which is I believe what a frustrated school like Pinecrest is looking for. But they will serve families, schools, and students much better in the long run as they will better equip all of those stakeholders to thrive in a hyperconnected world.

What Administrators, Educators, and Schools Can Do

• As administrators and educators, take advantage of the professional learning that you could be doing via social media. As you become more comfortable with using social media tools to learn, you will cultivate a positive online presence that can serve as a model and also gather professional connections and resources to help you when your school is struggling with difficulties. High school principal Eric Sheninger serves as a great example of someone who didn't get social media at first but who over the last three years has become convinced of its usefulness for his own learning as well as his students. I've written on my own blog about using Facebook for professional learning and recently presented a workshop on using Twitter for professional learning. Participating in social media for professional and educational reasons has helped me understand at a deep level the power and positive potential of the medium. 

• Understand that increasingly a person's online reputation now counts as their resume. Studies over the last year have shown that four out of five college admissions officers use Facebook to recruit students and more and more companies are looking at Facebook to find potential employees. Given these growing trends, not having an online presence could hurt a student's chances of getting into the college or career of their choosing. Students cannot wait until they are out of high school to establish or learn to negotiate having an online presence. The fact that our online reputations matter more and more each day can be used to teach students about the long-term importance of what they are doing online. Instead of banning Facebook, consider using it as a teaching tool.
• Provide positive online experiences for your students which are integrated with their learning. Consider using Edmodo, a high quality networking site that is free of charge and aimed at schools for the purpose of creating online learning communities. Blog with your students; some great resources for learning about and teaching with blogging can be found here, here, and here.
• Get students involved in collaborative projects which use technology and social media as tools for learning. The Flat Classroom Projects are award winning, quality opportunities for just such an endeavor, and their themes include digital citizenship, social action, and cross-cultural understanding. Flat Classroom also provides teacher training and support. You can also encourage students to use online tools in service of others. Check out what these Texas high school students have accomplished for kids in Kenya.
• There are more ideas interspersed throughout the slides from my recent presentation on Supporting Teachers and Students in the Curation of Their Digital Footprint.
• BOTTOM LINE: Don't try to ban Facebook or any other social media, but instead find ways to positively integrate them into teaching and learning. Doing so will provide myriad opportunities to discuss personal use of social media with students and mentor them in positive practices. 

What Parents Can Do

• Talk with your children regularly and often about your expectations for their behavior in personal interactions, whether they be in person or online. The two worlds are no longer separate. How you conduct yourself in front of others, whether talking, texting, chatting, or posting on Facebook, reveals your character; who you are as a person.
• If your child is under 13, they should not be on Facebook. It is a violation of Facebook's Terms of Service. This means most kids in the U.S. should not have an account until somewhere in the 7th grade at the earliest. One of the strongest statements you can make to your children about appropriate social media use is following the service terms of the sites they use.
• For younger kids, consider letting them participate in an age appropriate social network. One I've heard and read great things about is Yoursphere, which is for kids only and has the additional mission of teaching good online citizenship. Yoursphere also has great resources for parents.
• Make sure your child is not lying about their age on Facebook, even if they are 13 or older. Facebook has more strict privacy settings for users under 18.
• Educate yourself about Facebook and ways to positively interact with your kids about and through the social space. This Parents' Guide to Facebook from ConnectSafely.org is a great place to start. If you feel lost in the digital world, do not continue in your ignorance. Find adults in your life who know more than you and ask them questions. Ask your own kids questions about what they are doing online and how they do it; you may establish some bridges in your relationship!
• Monitor your children's computer and internet use. Insist that computer use occur in common areas of  the home, where others are likely to be present. Keep the charging station for cell phones in your bedroom and put all cell phones there at night. Friend them on Facebook and have rules that nothing posted should be hidden from family. Monitor what they post and discuss it with them privately.

• BOTTOM LINE: Remember you know how to parent and teach. You have taught or will teach your kids to walk through neighborhoods, ride bikes, and drive cars, even though all of those activities have potential pitfalls and dangers. You don't lock your kids away from those opportunities; you taught or will teach them how to participate appropriately and safely, and how to respect others when doing so. The digital environment of online activity is a different space, but the underlying principles of conducting oneself as a responsible, decent human being are the same.

Social Media Isn't Going Away

Public Domain

When the Pinecrest story first hit my Twitter feed yesterday, I sent out a Tweet asking others what advice they might give this school. I share here, with permission, the thoughts sent over two Tweets from Rick Archer, a school administrator from the Houston area.

I think you have to teach students about responsibility and consequences when using public social media. We have character ed/social skills training daily on topics just like this. We adults have to accept and adapt. (emphasis mine)

I agree wholeheartedly with Rick! It is time for educators who have been reluctant to enter the social media world professionally and/or with students to reassess. I truly believe that successful use and management of social media and our online presence has now become a life-skill that we are obligated to teach and teach well if we want our children and students to lead productive lives in today's society and in whatever the society will look like for them in ten, twenty, or thirty years.

It is certainly not in the best interest of students to stick our heads in the sand and try to pretend this social media thing can be shelved or made to go away. Instead, we ourselves need to commit to becoming more educated and staying up-to-date on trends in this arena so we can guide our students in a knowledgeable and positive manner. Doing so over time will improve our school environments and allow us to focus on quality teaching and learning in all areas.