Lots of questions were raised today about social media following the presentation today. Here is my silly policy. I hope it doesn't send me to jail, as Bridget suggested.
I live in a state that blocks all forms of social media from both students and teachers. We are unable to access Facebook, Twitter, or anything else that could quite possibly connect anyone to anything over the internet. There is a six-page policy on email alone. But we cannot live in non-connected world. So do the only thing I know to do to give my publication an Internet presence: I tell my students to break the rules. We have a Twitter, a Facebook, even a FourSquare for some reason. We are not allowed to do this, but we do. How do I get around it? It cannot be done on school grounds and is done off of our network. I still control everything, monitor what is happening, delete inappropriate items if needed, but I make the students tweet and add to the FB at least once a week.
This works better with Twitter, as I have found my students respond stronger to 140 characters than Facebook, which they consider for adults. My students tweet everything they can from the newspaper Twitter account, from lunch choices to fights in the hall. And it works. We have a substantial following, one that gets notices during the day. Administration has not said anything to me about this and I will continue doing this until I am asked to stop. I feel it is too important.
The question was raised earlier about responsibility, how do teachers get around the scary points of teen life that is put up for display for everyone to see. I hate say this, but I honestly just let the thing run wild. I have a Twitter, but don't really use it. It is easy for me to keep up with what is happening. Also, the students know I monitor it so they keep most things to a minimum.
Our district is much the same but does not block Twitter. It's so frustrating to me to go to our district office and see the big screen asking me to follow them on Facebook. What a contradiction that the students in our district can't read the Facebook feed at school. The teachers are able to use YouTube now which helps me a great deal with lesson plans and anticipatory sets (I like to use music). Interestingly, each year we have a meeting with professionals in the field that is hosted by our district; the professionals are shocked that the kids can't use the social media tools that have become standard in the industry. We keep trying to bring it up but there doesn't seem to be ANY give when it comes to Facebook. A few bad apples mentality I guess...Debbie
ReplyDeleteWe don't get any social media either and all blog sites are also blocked. I think I'm going to do what you do and "encourage" the students to work on all of this outside of class. I hope it works as well as your "policy" has.
ReplyDeleteRyan Peacock
Tooele High School
Tooele, Utah
I have a district that limits the amount of time I can be on a "blocked" site. So, when I go to FB to update our yearbook page, I'm charged at least 5 minutes--I only get 20 per day and the minutes are rounded up. Kids can't get access in my lab at all. This poses only a slight problem. About 90% of my students have a handheld device that gets internet. Some have cells and some have iPods/iPads. We communicate...but only sometimes through this media--I think my biggest challenge is not that we have it, but that we're limited to how much I can spend on it. So, if I need a video from YouTube, I have to decide if it's more important to update FB or to get material for teaching...I usually get the material for my other classes.
ReplyDeleteAs for Twitter--I've never had an interest in it. I frankly don't have the time during the year. Perhaps as the summer wears on I'll continue to improve my Tweetering, as I often call it. :)
Jamie Nusbaum
Sheboygan North HS
Sheboygan, Wis.
When I started at my school five years ago, the web was locked down. We had no access to any social media tools in our building and lots of legitimate internet research projects would be shut down if the topic was even the least bit edgy. My school fought back. It started with individual teachers (including me) and then the admin got behind us. We argued that we could not teach our students how to use these tools effectively without us teaching them how. We argued that it was silly to have a web policy that was the same for kindergartners as it was for high school students. We asked for a trial year--and the district granted that to us. For one year, we were the only high school in the district with all web filters off and access not restricted (except for extreme topics like pornography). And guess what? Nothing horrible happened! Our students on the whole took the freedom responsibly! Teachers started accessing all kinds of social media tools and using them effectively in our classrooms! No unsuspecting student was damaged by accidentally stumbling upon something scary on the internet! FB was not interrupting the entire educational process!
ReplyDeleteOf course we have students who need to be coached on how to use these tools well, and I certainly do on occasion have to ask for FB to disappear from the computer screen because that is not the tool we are using at the moment. But on the whole, having unrestricted Internet in the building has been great and despite the fears of the people who established the initial policies, nothing horrible has happened.
We must push back at these restrictive policies. Find someone at district admin who trusts you (or who you think might listen to you) and make a well-reasoned case about how the web restrictions are getting in the way of you being able to do your job. Point out the things you want to do that you can't. Harness the common core standards and show how better access to social media tools will enable you to better teach to those standards. It might take a while, but it's the only path to change. Keep letting the decision makers know what they are keeping from your students.
Obviously I cannot speak for the situation in other school districts and it's never really as simple as someone from the outside thinks it might be. Oh the politics that surround these things. I just know that a lot of these policies are based on fear, and the fear is often rooted in miseducation about what social media actually accomplishes and the role it plays right now in basic literacy. I often tell my students that I'm pretty sure that they can use FB to orchestrate their plans for the weekend. But can they use a wiki or a google site or twitter or (insert any social media tool) to collaborate with people on the other side of the planet on a shared project? THAT is why our students need these tools. Those are the kinds of skills they'll need in the future. They need to know how to enter into the conversation, how to connect with people beyond their own sphere of daily life, how to harness tools to share ideas and information, how to listen to what others are saying.
I'll stop ranting now. :-) I just know we have to fight for this stuff.
Rant on Sarah. You're not alone though. I act first and then wait for the response from our District, although I make sure my principal knows. It's never good to have the District surprise the boss about what they journalism program is doing.
DeleteI have found out though that it may not always be the District who sets the blocking policies. In California, our Internet service is provided by a wideband network funded by the state of California. The network does much of the filtering and supposedly has selected sites that they won't let Districts unblock. So it may be worse than you think. It may be a statewide mandate.
-- Steve Caswell
Hey, Bridget reference! Winning!
ReplyDeleteNo, but seriously. If I had understood the difference in FB 'groups' vs. 'friends' in the beginning, I would have done things differently. (I might now be a group as a student entity, I am still unclear) All I knew was that I was 'friends' with my college - and it was good enough for me. Then I went to a PCTELA (PA English Teachers) conference and there was a session on our responsibilities as 'first reporters' that freaked me out.
I know lots of unfortunate things about my students. I act when it is 'over-the-top' like pregnancy or significant drug use. I ignore mumbles about parties that obviously involved drinking, or this year, when I had a Senior student who was clearly a pothead and 'grew his own shit,' with Mom. I also 'friend' graduated students (only when requested) and see the latest tatoos and beer bong scenarios. These former students post nudity, lots of talk of underage drinking and those unfortunate fish faces. Don"t even ask about Halloween.
The fascinating thing is that it is like peek-a-boo. These people are techinically adults. What stage of child development is it when little kids understand 'object permenance?' They think I don't see them when they don't see me. When they address ME on FB - it is always as "mrs. parker."
I have kids. They are my problem. All the other people's kids that I love are only my problem while they are on 'my watch.'
#teamnofollowback on Twitter gives the students a false sense of security and me 'plausible deniability,' if it ever comes up.
I like Sarah's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy when it comes to administration. But do give yourself plausible deniability, in case anyone ever asks.
BTW: I'm currently in a philosophic debate with my admins about the usefullness of an unfettered internet. I will lose (and I should), but I may get to keep Youtube and Twitter open.
2 cents from the 'all you can eat seats,'
Bridget Parker