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How would you use what you've learned from this investigation to improve your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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How would you use what you've learned from this investigation to improve your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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I am finding that social media can be a great asset for the classroom (especially in my Spanish classes).  There are so many ways we can use to to connect with our students but also for our students to connect with people from around the world.  I have actually added Instagram and Twitter to my homepage on my Google Sites account for my Spanish high school classes.  I am excited for my students to be able to use Twitter to see what’s going on in the news in different Spanish speaking countries and  I am going to use Instagram to have students post videos they make for class and pictures of what they make in class.

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How would you use what you learned from this investigation to improve your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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How would you use what you learned from this investigation to improve your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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-I think social media can really help enhance student learning, collaboration, and get students interested in learning new content.  I follow a lot of people on Twitter who are very good with advocacy and professional development in the Physical Education world but I never read what they tweet or even check my Twitter account.  After completing this assignment, I have decided to start reading tweets and using Twitter to find positive ways to use social media in my classes.

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Successful Story of Social Media in Schools

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Successful Story of Social Media in Schools

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This is a video that talks about West High Bros, who are a group of students who tweet positive messages about their peers.

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How would you use what you learned from this investigation to improve 
your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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How would you use what you learned from this investigation to improve 
your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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What I learned from this investigation is that social media has a place in the classroom. It is up to the teacher to figure out what works best for them and what they are comfortable using. Social media can do a lot of harm but can also do a lot of good and if we teach students how to use it correctly and safely that they can learn a lot and have a great experience using social media tools.

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Can you find any successful and/or unsuccessful stories from the published literature that address the above questions? What are the main context, mechanisms, and factors that could explain the process and results of these stories?

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Can you find any successful and/or unsuccessful stories from the published literature that address the above questions? What are the main context, mechanisms, and factors that could explain the process and results of these stories?

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-Homework on Social Media: Benefits and Outcomes of Facebook as a Pedagogic Tool

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How would you use what you learned from this investigation to improve your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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How would you use what you learned from this investigation to improve your leadership practice or enhance your own professional development?

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-Social media certainly has a place in education.  It can motivate students to participate and bridge the gap between school and home.  The main thing that I have taken away from my investigation is that when I use social media for my classes, I will use an account set up specifically for that class and not my personal social media accounts.

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Can you find any successful and/or unsuccessful stories from the published literature that address the above questions? What are the main context, mechanisms, and factors that could explain the process and results of these stories?

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Can you find any successful and/or unsuccessful stories from the published literature that address the above questions? What are the main context, mechanisms, and factors that could explain the process and results of these stories?

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-How Twitter Changed My Leadership and School Culture.

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Ok, you've heard about Twitter. Your teachers maybe came back from a conference and said it was "so cool". You may even have been convinced to sign up for an account. But now what? What do you post? Who do you follow? And most importantly, does it really matter?

I was in a similar boat a few years ago. I like to pride myself as an early adopter of technology but I couldn't understand the whole buzz around social media. When I watched the Twitter introductory video, I wondered why in the world would anyone care if I was mowing the lawn or having a glass of wine? To the same point, I certainly didn't care if others were doing things like that. I couldn't imagine taking time away from my already over-crowded schedule to post little messages to my 10 followers.

Developing a Professional Learning Network

Fortunately, I was able to find some great people to follow. These folks posted some insightful blog articles, research and musings. Fellow teachers and administrators like: @mscofino, @leadershipfreak, @8amber8, @gcouros, @teachersjourney, @justintarte, @mrrobbo, @shiftparadigm, @angelamaiers, @edutopia, @louisephinney (I found that it was pretty safe to follow any Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) - they have little black apples in their profiles are typically keen posters!)

Slowly, I started I have an interesting Twitter feed. To find more people to follow, I looked at who the above people were following or mentioning. This was when I started to see the potential of Twitter - the start of my Professional Learning Network (PLN). Living and working as an administrator overseas meant that my usual resources weren't as readily available. Developing a diverse PLN meant that I was receiving short snippets of insight and I was able to pose questions to them as well. Twitter allows me hear from education researchers, reform advocates, leadership insights, motivational quotes, best practices and innovative ideas.
The next step was to figure out what to post?
Changing school culture

Twitter was slow to catch on at our school. Like me, it was hard for people to see the value. Creating a list of followers, really, strangers to follow, seemed daunting. We eventually switched our strategy and started to introduce Twitter as way of connecting within our ever-growing school.

We would tweet about what we saw going in each other's classrooms. We would post a funny photo or a simple "way to go"! It was slowly catching on, and then we hit upon capturing all our tweets through our own hashtag (#TISMacao). Having our hashtag allowed those of us on Twitter to see a thread of the posts about our school. But what about those not on Twitter?

We have a staff portal that contains the daily announcement, reminders and calendar. It is a simple Google site that operates as an intranet. We discovered that we could embed the hashtag and have all of our posts show up there for the rest of the school. Not only did this allow us a very easy way of seeing what was going on around the school, it gave non-Twitter users a way of seeing it as well. More importantly, they were able to get ideas of what to post and what type of potential value it might have.

Now only a few months into it, we have 89 of our teachers and staff with an active Twitter account. I keep a Twitter List will all of our teachers and staff. This allows new users to find the rest of the existing staff without too much fuss. There's no formal expectation for staff to have an account or to participate in any way. It is simply there for those that want to use it and for those that want to view it.
What do we post?
Mostly teachers share what's happening around the school. It's more than just finding a "post-worthy" photo or caption. While it is great to get retweets, mentions or favourites - teachers are sharing about regular good things happening within their classrooms. This is the heart of education. It is not about that one great lesson that happens once a month or once a semester. It is about building a community of learners everyday. Twitter allows teachers to document this journey. Here are some of our recent posts:

Connected Educator + Twitter = PLN RT10 Steps to Creating the Perfect Educational Twitter Account - http://t.co/jpF1k5f98t via @Shareaholic

- Chyrelanne Kuipers (@chyrelanne_k) October 11, 2014

Looking for suggestions of books/publications/subscriptions focused on educational leadership.

- Nick Chignall (@nchignall) October 11, 2014

Wow, what great options @dalhousie #tismacao #tisunifair pic.twitter.com/aKqXmSn0HG

- Shevon Wilson (@ShevonWilson) October 10, 2014

They are so exciting to be a "teacher". pic.twitter.com/5l7hKCQJQf

- sandrachan (@sandrac96621168) October 9, 2014

50 Questions To Help Students Think About What They Think http://t.co/fllslzFjSa via @teachthought

- Anna Smibert (@smibert) October 5, 2014

Sound check ready for the walkathon next week #tismacao #exciting #community #spirit pic.twitter.com/wkPMfwtPlr

- Louise Phinney  (@Louisephinney) October 10, 2014

5 Tips For Keeping Students On Task While Using Technology http://t.co/E8n3sQuGr7

- Mel Varga (@varga_mel) October 4, 2014

How has it changed our culture?
Using Twitter gave us a way of sharing and promoting what was happening behind (typically) closed doors. It gave us another way of being collaborative. It has helped to remove the barriers (real and imagined) between classrooms. As an administrator, I get to see the great things that is happening throughout the school. Twitter gives me a way to share it with the rest of the school.

What about you?

How are you or your school using Twitter? Let us know in the comments below!

If you are just starting out on Twitter, start following people and just read what they post but don't be afraid to post your own ideas, links, photos. Don't feel like you need to read every post - that's impossible. Just wade into your Twitter stream, look around, share a bit, retweet, and wade back out again.

If you are looking at expanding Twitter into your school - find a way to group your posts together and share them with the rest of the school. It will grow naturally from there. (If you need more instructions on how we do it, just let me know).

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How Twitter Changed My Leadership and Our School Culture

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Ok, you've heard about Twitter. Your teachers maybe came back from a conference and said it was "so cool". You may even have been convinced to sign up for an account. But now what? What do you post? Who do…

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Can you find any successful and/or unsuccessful stories from the published literature that address the above questions? What are the main context, mechanisms, and factors that could explain the process and results of these stories?

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Can you find any successful and/or unsuccessful stories from the published literature that address the above questions? What are the main context, mechanisms, and factors that could explain the process and results of these stories?

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-Check Out That Selfie: How to Use Social Media in the Classroom

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How do you think schools’ social media is the resource that can be utilized to improve schools?

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How do you think schools’ social media is the resource that can be utilized to improve schools?

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-According to Poore, if you take a look at what students do in their free time you will see that a lot of time is spent using social media. (p. 8)  If students are already using social media in their free time, what better way to get them to think about school related activities than to post things on their social media?
-Another way social media can help improve schools is communication with parents in real time. In an article by Joel Gagne titled “Why Public School Leaders Must Embrace Social Media Now” he states that often, schools communicate with stakeholders via either regular postal mail or the school website. When a school district decides to utilize social media, their stakeholders can receive information like the “Principal’s Report,” event information, schedule changes, and more in real time. They can also use social media to listen to what many in their community are thinking about their local public schools.
-Bridging the gap between home and school can be done so much more easily with social media. In the book Using Social Media, Poore goes on to state that instant messaging, chat, Skype, and Twitter all provide real-time, digital communication services.  These tools can be used to build and support socially constructive, dialogic, and democratic classrooms that integrate a variety of perspectives (p. 129).
-When using social media we are able to communicate important information home to parents/families in a manner that is quicker than anything we’ve seen before since it happens in real time.
-Schools can use social media to showcase staff and students with notable achievements.
-Students can promote their school by tagging their school in posts when they do good things in their community to show that they are a well-rounded individual.

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How should the educational leaders consider the benefits and challenges associated with social media, as they develop and implement social media policies for their schools?

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How should the educational leaders consider the benefits and challenges associated with social media, as they develop and implement social media policies for their schools?

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-Educational leaders should look at the benefits and challenges associated with social media from research articles in order to see how they can use the benefits of social media to enhance student learning, while being aware of the challenges that students may be facing.
-There are so many benefits of using social media in the classroom, the biggest challenge is that our students are not educated in how to use social media in an educational and responsible manner.
-According to Megan Poore in Using Social Media in the Classroom, using social media tools in the classroom are excellent tools for socializing students into the online world and for teaching them about appropriate online communication practices.  They can also be highly motivational for students. Having said this, however, it should be emphasized that social media are not a panacea for all educational dilemmas (p. 7).
-One of the most important elements of using social media for education has to be the teaching of digital citizenship. As Prasanna Bharti states in "Why is Digital Citizenship Important? Even for Youngest Kids?" today's employers look at social media profiles to judge potential employees. Today's students need to realize the potential consequences of the things they post.
-Professional Development has to be given to teachers about how resources they can use for teaching about social media and digital citizenship. Teachers don’t know what to cover or what social media tools to use that will work for their classroom or that are appropriate to use.