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Social Media at School: Teaching Safety on the Virtual Playground | Edutopia

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Social Media at School: Teaching Safety on the Virtual Playground | Edutopia

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These days, social media gets a pretty bad rap. It seems like every other day there is a celebrity apology or a story about a teen who commits suicide due to cyberbullying. It's true, social media can breed some pretty awful stuff. And that awful stuff is great material for the digital citizenship unit that all of my school's incoming freshmen are expected to complete.

Acceptable Use

Our school is unique in Philadelphia in that it's one of the few public schools with a 1:1 program that allows students to take devices home. We give our students access to the world, and with that access comes a lot of responsibility. As such, it's vital that, from the beginning, we prepare students to use caution and be thoughtful when using their laptops.

Let's face it -- teenagers are on social media in school and out of school, even if their parents have told them they can't be, and even if the school has rules about being on phones during school hours. I always use the playground analogy when it comes to the internet and social media. We let our kids go to the playground knowing that they may encounter bullies there, or that they could fall and get hurt. We teach them how to climb, we help them when they fall or hurt themslves, and we instruct them about how to handle the bullies they may run into. Social media is the playground of this generation. They still need our guidance and help.

In my class, we start the year with the book, by Matt Ivester. I read chapters out loud to the kids, and we discuss the stories and content of each chapter. Students learn about how their digital footprint affects their job and college opportunities, about what cyberbullying is and how it affects people, about IP addresses and posting anonymously, and many other important topics. I supplement our readings with current articles from the news as well as a short group project about the rights and responsibilities of digital citizens. While reading the book, we also review our school and our district's acceptable use policy, reading it out loud, word for word, while discussing what each aspect of the policy means. Our freshmen do not receive their laptops until October, giving them time to review these policies and have meaningful discussions about responsible use of technology before they get their machines.

Always Learning

It is through these discussions that I learn about how students use social media, what their experiences have been, and what their beliefs are. I have also witnessed many students begin to reflect on their own social media use and the way that they interact with others online. We still have blunders that occur when students make poor choices despite everything we've discussed, but these discussions make it easier to put these poor choices into context. I can refer back to articles we've read, discussions we've had, and the ways that similar choices have affected real people.

Since our students have built such a deep understanding of their digital footprint and their digital identity as well as the responsibilities that come with using social media, our teachers feel more comfortable using social media in the classroom. For instance, our Spanish teacher had students create Vine videos to act out scenes in Spanish. In addition, students in my tech class created posters about digital citizenship and shared them on our website.

Schools and teachers don't have to be afraid of social media if they take the time to teach kids how to play on this virtual playground responsibly, ethically, and safely.

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Social Media at School: Teaching Safety on the Virtual Playground | Edutopia

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These days, social media gets a pretty bad rap. It seems like every other day there is a celebrity apology or a story about a teen who commits suicide due to cyberbullying. It's true, social media can breed some pretty awful stuff.

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Been working lots with Google Forms and creating quizzes/tests that are self-grading with Flubaroo!! Ask me and I can show you how simple and easy it is!!

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6th grade science teacher

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Middle School Spanish

Spanish is fun give it a try! Hola means hello, adios means good bye!

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Math in 7th and 8th grades

We have used a spreadsheet.

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6th Grade Math

Worked with Scratch in the classroom.

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Middle School French

Google Docs

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Middle School music

google docs

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7th/8th Grade Math

Still trying to figure out GarageBand

:)

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middle school science

google docs - share information with students - Stuedents share within their groups and then submit

maps

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Middle School Art

Use YouTube

Twitter@teachart#1

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Academy 8 Humanities

Google Docs for writing and sharing; Google Slides for presentations

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Full - Time Substitute Teacher

K-8 All Subjects/Grades

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6th Social Studies & Rekigion Teacher ;0

Google Docs

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Hardey 7 Humanities

Google Slides + Docs

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Been reading lots about Kaizena as well as Grammarly

WE had a whole section collaborate on Google Slides aka presentation.

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6th grade ELA

Google docs

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Middle School LAP

Google earth for tracking hurricanes (OK, I can't do it without my former science teacher friend, but it's cool)

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Middle School LAP

Ginger

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7th Grade Humanitis

Google Docs newspaper templates

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Technology Systems Administrator Google Docs

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LS LAP

google docs

read/write

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5th grade

Google docs to share and review student writing. I use it to read and determine what kind of writing mini lessons to teach next.

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Middle School Mathematics

I use YouTube to support a Flipped Classroom.

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Middle School Religion and Life Skills

I found Notable PDF for annotating pdfs on the Chromebooks

Check out ClassFlow for Formative Assessments

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Google docs for sharing info/units /links with teammates and kids

all classroom writing assignments are done on google chrome, peer editing, etc

google sheets

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8th grade Humanities

The class uses YouTube. Students often submit work and collaborate via Google Docs.

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5th grade

Google Docs - writing, sharing documents with students

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Lower School

Twitter

@Mligon4

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With 6th graders, we always refer to "the waffle" you will find out soon why that is important

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Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

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DIG Lit GR. 6

school symbaloo amde by Kristin L.

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