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Group 4

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Find and save recipes, parenting hacks, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

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Involving Families in Technology Education

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Involving Families in Technology Education

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Boundaries Between Teachers and Students Within the Classroom

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Boundaries Between Teachers and Students Within the Classroom

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Around the country, school districts are grappling over guidelines that would govern how - and whether - educators should use social media.

The key is finding a way to take advantage of the learning opportunities social media provides while striking the proper balance between protecting kids and preserving professional boundaries and First Amendment rights.

That's the struggle in Stonington, Connecticut, where the board of education is considering a new a policy. According to Superintendent Leanne Masterjoseph, "The policy has to err on the side of safety for kids."

But Gail MacDonald, chair of the Stonington Board of Education, said she did not "want to be in the speech-controlling business at all."

So what's the solution? Maybe school boards should ask the educators themselves.

William Jackson, a teacher and technology consultant in Jacksonville, Florida, says that just as there are First Amendment rights of teachers who participate in social networking, there are also privacy rights of students.

"When educators put ourselves on display by writing something and putting it online, we are responsible and accountable for the content and motives," he wrote recently on his blog, adding that "teachers should not post things that are private and confidential about a student."

His bottom line: If you feel comfortable saying it to parents and in public then you should be able to say it in a blog or on Facebook.

This is simple, common sense advice for educators who want to talk about students on Facebook - but what about those considering using social media to talk to students?

Brock Dubbels, a longtime educator from Minneapolis, Minnesota who regularly uses technology in the classroom, advises setting clear boundaries when it comes to social media.

"Kids don't need to see my backyard, or know what I say to my wife over dinner. When I have fun with friends and family, that's a different me, and it's important that I make that distinction," he explains. "Being a professional means that I project the values of my profession and my employer when communicating with students."

He acknowledges that with the proliferation of social media, it can be difficult to make this distinction, but he insists that it must be made. If he gets friend requests from students, he deletes them.

"I approach the student personally and thank them, but tell them that it is not appropriate for me to be a "friend" when I am their teacher and advocate," he says.

That's not to say that social media has no place in the classroom.

"Social networking a powerful tool for communicating and should not be ignored or rejected by the education community," says Brian Rappe, a teacher in Burnsville, Minnesota. "I think school districts should set up guidelines to protect their employees and the district. Teachers should have separate sites - one for work and one for personal use and the two should never cross paths."

Gina Moretto Frutig, an educator in Durham, North Carolina, agrees. She maintains a separate Facebook page just for students and their parents.

"I wouldn't even let other teachers on it," she says. "I used it to post field trip pictures and pictures of in-class activities. Many parents have access to it on their phones, so it was a convenient way to update everyone."

Ohio teacher April Stephenson Totten didn't want any access at all to her student's Facebook pages, so she uses Edmodo.com.

"It's an educational social network that can be accessed on phones and ipods," she says. "So far it works great for me."

If educators are still unsure how to handle social media in the classroom, and if the district has no guidelines or policy, Dubbels suggests looking at other district policies. But the first step is to carefully weigh the safety and educational benefits of social media.

"If you're not willing to look at safety and learning, don't do it," he says.

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Why Can't We Be Friends? Social Media Boundaries Between Teachers and Students - NEA Today

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Around the country, school districts are grappling over guidelines that would govern how - and whether - educators should use social media. The key is finding a way to take advantage of the learning opportunities social media provides while striking the proper balance between protecting kids and preserving professional boundaries and First Amendment rights.

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What should you do if you are being Bullied Online

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What should you do if you are being Bullied Online - In relation to Anti-Bullying week that is coming up (18th-23rd November). Here are some tips and advice ...

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Sites like Able2Know allow teachers to create forums where students can post questions while exploring media. Teachers can even create anonymous forums to allow students more comfort in asking questions about sites and media that they are unsure about!

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Ask an Expert at able2know - Ask Questions, Share Answers

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Ask questions and share answers at able2know, a free ask an expert community.

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Appropriate Social Media in the Classroom

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Appropriate Social Media in the Classroom

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Is Social Media Relevant? Take the Quiz

Before we talk social media, let's talk about the relevance of social media by taking a quiz. Which of the following is most likely to be true?

☐ Should we teach letter-writing in the classroom? Kids need to write letters and mail them. But what if they become pen pals with strangers and share private information with them? What if their letter gets lost in the mail and the wrong person opens it? Are we opening up a whole dangerous world to our students once they mail letters to others? Surely students will send thousands of letters through the mail in their lifetime.

☐ Should we teach email in the classroom? Kids need to email other people and should know how to title a subject. But what if they email someone bad? What if they accidentally send it to the wrong person? What will we do? And are we opening up a whole dangerous world to our students once they email others? Surely students will send thousands of emails in their lifetime.

☐ Should we teach (dare we say it) social media in the classroom? I mean, they don't have to learn microblogging on Twitter -- you can do that in Edmodo, right? You can have a private blog or put them on Kidblogs or Edublogs instead of letting them post long status updates on Facebook, right? Are we opening up a whole dangerous world to our students once they are writing online and posting comments to each other? Surely students will post thousands of status updates, pictures, and blogs in their lifetime.

The Social Media Answer

☑ There's one form of writing that can arguably get someone fired, hired or forced to retire faster than any other form of writing. (If you don't believe me, read "How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life" in the New York Times.)

☑ There's one form that will most likely be read by college admissions offices and teams of student "stalkers" hired to vet students before they receive scholarships.

☑ There's one form that will prevent some people from running for political office and get others elected.

One form of writing is that powerful.

If you guessed social media, you're right.

The Social Media Myth

The myth about social media in the classroom is that if you use it, kids will be Tweeting, Facebooking and Snapchatting while you're trying to teach. We still have to focus on the task at hand. Don't mistake social media for socializing. They're different -- just as kids talking as they work in groups or talking while hanging out are different.

You don't even have to bring the most popular social media sites into your classroom. You can use Fakebook or FakeTweet as students work on this form of conversation. Edublogs, Kidblog, Edmodo, and more will let you use social media competencies and writing techniques. Some teachers are even doing "tweets" on post-it notes as exit tickets. You can use mainstream social media, too.

12 Ways Teachers are Using Social Media in the Classroom Right Now

1. Tweet or post status updates as a class. Teacher Karen Lirenman lets students propose nuggets of learning that are posted for parents to read.

2. Write blog posts about what students are learning. Teacher Kevin Jarrett blogs reflections about his Elementary STEM lab for parents to read each week.

3. Let your students write for the world. Linda Yollis' students reflect about learning and classroom happenings.

4. Connect to other classrooms through social media. Joli Barker is fearlessly connecting her classroom through a variety of media.

5. Use Facebook to get feedback for your students' online science fair projects. Teacher Jamie Ewing is doing this now, as he shared recently.

6. Use YouTube for your students to host a show or a podcast. Don Wettrick's students hosted the Focus Show online and now share their work on a podcast.

7. Create Twitter accounts for a special interest projects. My student Morgan spent two years testing and researching the best apps for kids with autism (with the help of three "recruits"), and her work just won her an NCWIT Award for the State of Georgia.

8. Ask questions to engage your students in authentic learning. Tom Barrett did this when his class studied probability by asking about the weather in various locations.

9. Communicate with other classrooms. The Global Read Aloud, Global Classroom Project and Physics of the Future are three examples of how teachers use social media to connect their students as they collaborate and communicate.

10. Create projects with other teachers. (Full disclosure: I co-created Physics of the Future with Aaron Maurer, a fellow educator I first met on Twitter.)

11. Share your learning with the world. My students are creating an Encyclopedia of Learning Games with Dr. Lee Graham's grad students at the University of Alaska Southeast. The educators are testing the games, and the students are testing them, too.

12. Further a cause that you care about. Mrs. Stadler's classes are working to save the rhinos in South Africa, and Angela Maiers has thousands of kids choosing to matter.

It's in the Standards

If you're going to ignore social media in the classroom, then throw out the ISTE Standards for Students and stop pretending that you're 21st century. Stop pretending that you're helping low-income children overcome the digital divide if you aren't going to teach them how to communicate online.

Social media is here. It's just another resource and doesn't have to be a distraction from learning objectives. Social media is another tool that you can use to make your classroom more engaging, relevant and culturally diverse.

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A Guidebook for Social Media in the Classroom

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Before we talk social media, let's talk about the relevance of social media by taking a quiz. Which of the following is most likely to be true? ☐ Should we teach letter-writing in the classroom? Kids need to write letters and mail them.

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1. Know your intentions

2. Be your authentic self

3. Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

4. Offer random 'tweets' of kindness

5. Experience now, share later

6. Be active, not reactive

7. Respond with your full attention

8. Use mobile social media sparingly

9. Practice letting go

10. Enjoy it!

This site has ten easy tips and tricks for appropriately using social media, and is easily adaptable to fit all types of media.

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For the last two years, I have provided a daily wisdom quote through a Twitter account called Tiny Buddha. Since the follower count has grown by leaps and bounds, people have suggested I tweet more often throughout the day. I've realized, however, that the greatest lesson we can all learn is that less is enough. In a time when connections can seem like commodities and online interactions can become casually inauthentic, mindfulness is not just a matter of fostering increased awareness. It's about relating meaningfully to other people and ourselves. With this goal in mind, I've compiled a list of 10 tips for using social media mindfully.

1. Know your intentions.
Doug Firebaugh of SocialMediaBlogster.com has identified seven psychological needs we may be looking to meet when we log on: acknowledgment, attention, approval, appreciation, acclaim, assurance, and inclusion. Before you post, ask yourself: Am I looking to be seen or validated? Is there something more constructive I could do to meet that need?

2. Be your authentic self.
In the age of personal branding, most of us have a persona we'd like to develop or maintain. Ego-driven tweets focus on an agenda; authenticity communicates from the heart. Talk about the things that really matter to you. If you need advice or support, ask for it. It's easier to be present when you're being true to yourself.

3. If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?
Sometimes we post thoughts without considering how they might impact our entire audience. It's easy to forget how many friends are reading. Two hundred people make a crowd in person, but online that number can seem insignificant. Before you share, ask yourself: is there anyone this might harm?

4. Offer random tweets of kindness.
Every now and then I ask on Twitter, "Is there anything I can do to help or support you today?" It's a simple way to use social media to give without expectations of anything in return. By reaching out to help a stranger, you create the possibility of connecting personally with followers you may have otherwise known only peripherally.

5. Experience now, share later.
It's common to snap a picture with your phone and upload it to Facebook or email it to a friend. This overlaps the experience of being in a moment and sharing it. It also minimizes intimacy, since your entire audience joins your date or gathering in real time. Just as we aim to reduce our internal monologues to be present, we can do the same with our digital narration.

6. Be active, not reactive.
You may receive email updates whenever there is activity on one of your social media accounts, or you might have your cell phone set to give you these types of alerts. This forces you to decide many times throughout the day whether you want or need to respond. Another approach is to choose when to join the conversation, and to use your offline time to decide what value you have to offer.

7. Respond with your full attention.
People often share links without actually reading them, or comment on posts after only scanning them. If the greatest gift we can give someone is our attention, then social media allows us to be endlessly generous. We may not be able to reply to everyone, but responding thoughtfully when we can makes a difference.

8. Use mobile social media sparingly.
In 2009, Pew Research found that 43 percent of cell phone users access the Web on their devices several times a day. It's what former Microsoft employee Linda Stone refers to as continuous partial attention-when you frequently sign on to be sure you don't miss out anything. If you choose to limit your cell phone access, you may miss out online, but you won't miss what's in front of you.

9. Practice letting go.
It may feel unkind to disregard certain updates or tweets, but we need downtime to be kind to ourselves. Give yourself permission to let yesterday's stream go. This way you won't need to "catch up" on updates that have passed but instead can be part of today's conversation.

10. Enjoy social media!
These are merely suggestions to feel present and purposeful when utilizing social media, but they aren't hard-and-fast rules. Follow your own instincts and have fun with it. If you're mindful when you're disconnected from technology, you have all the tools you need to be mindful when you go online.

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For the last two years, I have provided a daily wisdom quote through a Twitter account called Tiny Buddha. Since the follower count has grown by leaps and bounds, people have suggested I tweet more often throughout the day. I've realized, however, that the greatest lesson we can all learn is that less is enough.

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Steps Toward Harnessing the Good Aspects of Teaching with Technology

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Steps Toward Harnessing the Good Aspects of Teaching with Technology

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-Make activities stimulating and engaging

-Involve parents in media literacy teachings via home technology explorations

-Use only reputable sites and teach students how to decide if a site is reliable

-Monitor learning and technology use

-Allow students opportunities to ask questions

-Do not overstep boundaries (personal Facebook use may be too much)

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Steps Toward Reducing Negative Influences of Electronic Media on Young Learners:

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Steps Toward Reducing Negative Influences of Electronic Media on Young Learners:

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- Discuss WHY teaching media literacy is important

-Discuss WHAT the negative influences of media are

-Discuss HOW to appropriately use media

-Discuss WHAT to do if you are bullied online

-Discuss HOW to determine if a site is reliable and safe to use

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"It is no longer possible or necessary to store all available information within the human brain"

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We are, all of us, awash in media. Television. Movies. The Internet. Billboards. Newspapers. Magazines. Radio. Newsletters. Individually and collectively, we spend more time with more media than ever before - an average of 10.5 hours a day, about 25% of that time using two media simultaneously, according to a recent study of "Middletown, USA" by the University of South Carolina.

Children in particular have become media-obsessed. Another recent study, this one by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that 68% of kids 2 and younger spend an average of two hours a day in front of a screen, either television or computer. Children under 6 spend as much time in front of a screen as they do playing outside - and three times as much as they spend reading or being read to.

Those numbers don't decline as the children grow older. Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media culture at New York University, has coined the term "screen-agers" to convey the depth of this inundation.

Moreover, yet another study - the 2003 Roper Youth Report - shows that kids ages 8 to 17 have 10% more say now than they did a year ago in their families' media purchases: magazines, newspapers, music, DVDs.

Young people use the media primarily for entertainment and recreation, not for information and education. But news is ubiquitous - headlines, snippets, bulletins, crawls - and the very fact that young people spend so much time with media that have the potential to inform and educate gives our schools an enormous opportunity (and obligation) to teach new and increasingly valuable skills.

The opportunity goes beyond just helping children make sense of the news, of course. On the Internet in particular, a single click takes them into worlds at once forbidden and fascinating, sites with hidden (and not-so-hidden) agendas and pop-up commercial messages that don't even require a click.

Consider today's column a plea for media literacy classes in our nation's schools.

We live in increasingly complex times, and unless we teach our children how to read about, watch, interpret, understand and analyze the day's events, we risk raising a generation of civic illiterates, political ignoramuses and uncritical consumers, vulnerable not only to crackpot ideas, faulty reasoning and putative despots but fraudulent sales pitches and misleading advertising claims.

Teaching media literacy is, in a sense, teaching critical thinking, and it should "start early, with simple activities in preschool, and continue through high school," says Tessa Jolls, president and CEO of the Santa Monica-based Center for Media Literacy, which provides guidance and curricula for school districts interested in taking on this most challenging task.

"The Internet caused a sea change in what kids need and how teachers should teach and in what parents want for their kids," says Elizabeth Thoman, who founded the center four years ago. "The Internet has changed our understanding of how kids are learning, in every sense of that term, and now instead of parents worrying about their kids watching too many commercials on Saturday morning cartoons, there is this much larger issue of all the images and messages that come pouring in over the Internet."
Education transformation
Thoman, Jolls and their center draw their inspiration, in part, from the writings of the late David Berlo, a noted communications scholar and the former president of Illinois State University. Berlo believed that the transformation of our culture from an Industrial Age to an Information Age required a similar transformation in education.

"Most of what we have called formal education has been intended to imprint on the human mind all of the information that we might need for a lifetime," he wrote in 1975. But the simultaneous explosion in information and technology mean that "for the first time in history," it is no longer either possible or necessary to store all available information within the human brain, and Berlo argued that education must adjust accordingly.

"Education needs to be geared toward the handling of data rather than the accumulation of data," he wrote. "Humankind needs to be taught how to process information."

Kids today are confronted with "every conceivable content," Jolls says. "I want them to have the tools and skills to make good decisions for themselves on the media messages they see.

"For teenagers, that might start with learning to evaluate commercial messages so they can buy a car intelligently. But with the right instruction, that could ultimately lead to applying moral criteria in looking at violence or pornography, learning what's healthy and moral as well as what's practical and useful."

Jolls is not suggesting that educators abandon the 3 Rs in favor of some New Age gobbledygook or religious teaching - only that media literacy be incorporated in the teaching of existing subjects.

She and Thoman and their staff of six have developed the MediaLit Kit(tm),a detailed curriculum for doing just that. The essence of their approach is what they call the "five key questions" students should learn to ask about every media message they see:

* "Who created the message?

* "What techniques are used to attract my attention?

* "What lifestyles, values and points of view are presented in or omitted from the message?

* "Why was this message sent?

* "How might different people understand the message differently from me?"

"If we could teach kids to routinely apply those questions to every message that comes at them," Thoman says, "they would be much more sophisticated and understanding - and empowered, because they would then be able to make distinctions and judgments about their lives and the world around them."
Some roadblocks
That all seems obvious. But Jolls, Thoman and others in the national Alliance for a Media Literate America have run into a few problems in trying to sell their arguments. One is that education in America is very structured, resistant to change, and media literacy is not an accepted course in the formal canon, not part of what is known as the "K-12 standards."

With school budgets tight everywhere, it's difficult to introduce programs or classes or hire more teachers to administer those programs and teach those classes.

Advocates of media literacy education say the solution is to incorporate that subject in existing classes.

In Pennsylvania schools, for example, a cross-disciplinary approach to "reading standards" uses the media so students can "compare information received on television with that received on radio or in newspapers ... discuss the reliability of information received on Internet sources; explain how film can represent either accurate versions or fictional versions of the same event, [and] explain the role of advertisers in the media."

Reading is just one of many "natural homes for media literacy," Thoman says. "In Canada, it's required for high school graduation, and it's embedded in the language arts program. Different aspects of it can be taught as part of social studies or health or any of a number of other subjects.

"Look at health, for example. Look at all the media messages kids get in the form of fast food commercials, stories on obesity and the sedentary lifestyle. They should be taught how to evaluate those messages and apply them in their own lives."

But someone has to train the teachers to teach this material, and that too takes time and money.

"People say, 'Come in and teach us how to do it,' " Thoman says, "but you can't do it in a day. It takes time."

The economics and politics of the textbook industry are also hurdles to be overcome.

"The books and teaching materials we have are supplemental material, not basic texts," Thoman says. Adoption of supplemental material requires both lobbying and extra expenditures.

Despite the obstacles, Jolls and Thoman are optimistic. They have no statistics on the number of schools now teaching media literacy, but they say requests for their materials are increasing significantly, and visits to their Web site ( www.medialit.org) have more than doubled in the past year.

"We're still in missionary mode," Thoman says.

It's a mission well worth pursuing - for our children, for our society and for our future.

Author:
Pulitzer Prize winner David Shaw is the media/technology columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

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A Plea for Media Literacy in our Nation's Schools

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We are, all of us, awash in media. Television. Movies. The Internet. Billboards. Newspapers. Magazines. Radio. Newsletters. Individually and collectively, we spend more time with more media than ever before - an average of 10.5 hours a day, about 25% of that time using two media simultaneously, according to a recent study of "Middletown, USA" by the University of South Carolina.

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What are the Negative Influences of Electronic Media?  Article

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What are the Negative Influences of Electronic Media?  Article

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With the ever-evolving and increasingly accessible digital and media landscape, health and media advocates convened a symposium Thursday in Washington, D.C., to address the cognitive, social and emotional impact of media on children's lives.

Rising obesity rates, incidents of cyber-bulling and other challenges reflect the growing impact of media on the health and well-being of children as a public health concern.

"Kids are tech savvy and judgment poor," stated Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. This can be a dangerous combination.

While technology can certainly be a wonderful learning tool and opportunity for self-expression of children, advocates recognized that safeguards need to be in place to protect children from certain vulnerabilities so they are operating in a safe environment.

They spoke about growing issues over privacy concerns, particularly in this "self-revealing" era in which kids today are growing up. Whatever they text or post can be searched, copied, pasted, distributed and viewed by vast invisible audiences. Their activities and personal information are often being tracked and traced with cookies and other tracking technologies, without their knowledge.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., joked, "If they had Facebook when I was in high school, I likely would not be in Congress today."

And others feared posts lacking judgment negatively affecting their children's chances of getting into good colleges.

That is why there is an urge for a new public policy agenda to protect the privacy of children and teens, as outlined in a brief by Common Sense Media, host of the Capitol Hill symposium. Among other things, such an agenda would not track kids online; allow parents and kids to delete online information; not permit behavioral marketing to kids; and require an "opt in" privacy standard - especially for kids.

On the federal level, panelists discussed the need for the implementation of sound legislation to hold companies to certain standards. However, they recognized that the responsibility cannot rest solely with the government, but must come from a partnership with parents, schools - where children spend so much of their time - and the community.

In addition to the concerns of privacy, Deborah Milligan, MD, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, discussed from a pediatrician's point of view, the concerns over too much screen time and other challenges as outlined in the academy's report, " The Impact of Social Media Use on Children, Adolescents and Families."

She said enormous amounts of time are being spent in this isolating act of sitting in front of a screen, as opposed to playing outside. Aside from the sedentary nature and concerns over childhood obesity, from a mental health standpoint, there is also new emerging research around linkages of mental health and social media. Comparing self to others' profile pages could potentially lead to what the pediatricians have termed as " Facebook depression." Threats of cyber-bullying can also lead to mental anguish among teens, and sometimes go unaddressed if parents or school officials are unaware.

Panelists stressed the need for further research regarding health connections to technology and media, so it can be most appropriately addressed, such as how media consumption and targeted advertising can be linked to childhood obesity.

Speakers also discussed the issue of healthy media images for girls. They underscored the need for positive role models on the screen, and in advertisements, in which females are not hyper-sexualized or valued solely for their looks, but portrayed in roles of strength and for their intellectual capacity.

"Media is not going away, so how can we use it to make our children better citizens?" asked Ellen Wartella, professor of communications studies at Northwestern University.

Engaging adolescents in conversation is key to finding solutions, panelists noted. As technology is rapidly changing, general awareness among parents is important as well as setting certain guidelines. Parents should be an example of how to properly use technology, such as designating dinner time as devoted to talking with no cell phones and no screen time.

Try to have an open dialogue with your children, urged Ivor Braden Horn, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine. She said to listen to your kids, and observe signs of things they don't say. In addition, parents are prime role models for their children regarding body perception and promoting healthy lifestyles.

While still fostering a spirit of innovation and the advancements of technology, the symposium acknowledged the need to critically think about the impact of media on the health and well-being of impressionable children, with the need for certain safeguards and general awareness. There was a call for stronger research, partnerships and open dialogue, as society grapples with these public health concerns emerging from this new digital era and those most vulnerable.

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Digital media has growing impact on kids' health

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With the ever-evolving and increasingly accessible digital and media landscape, health and media advocates convened a symposium Thursday in Washington, D.C., to address the cognitive, social and emotional impact of media on children's lives. Rising obesity rates, incidents of cyber-bulling and other challenges reflect the growing impact of media on the health and well-being of children as a public health concern.