Educators and Social Media
It took me a long time to come around to using social media such as twitter as a professional. Sure I had facebook and a few other social media accounts that I used to keep in touch with family and friends and follow things that interested me. I could not see how having ONE more social media account would benefit me. To me it seemed like just one more thing I was going to have to keep updated, follow, check etc. but I was SO wrong. I started using Twitter as an educator a couple of years ago - mostly just lurking, but there was SO much to learn. You can never get completely caught up with all that there is to read on Twitter but even if you just have a couple of spare minutes and read one link a day you can learn so much from other educators online. I have tried to get more teachers at my school to become more active on Twitter but most are still stuck where I was before I started using Twitter. Even though I have been on Twitter for a while, this was my first week actually participating in a twitter chat and it was really fun! I will say that I am not sure I have the time this school year to participate in such chats with balancing work, my masters and time with my family. I do think I could make the commitment in the upcoming years to participate more. With all of the transitions that have been happening with the science standards in California, Twitter has been a great place to see ideas that other science teachers are sharing. I think some of the critical issues to consider would be making sure you have permission to post pictures of your students. Our school recently released a list of students who's parents had asked for them not to be photographed (This list was generated at the beginning of the year) and I had already posted images of one of the children on the list. I felt awful, but the list had not been shared with us at the time. I now try to take a lot of my student pictures without faces, or showing the backs of their heads if possible and removing and student names from work samples. Having a child of my own, I want to respect a parents decision to not have their child's picture or name posted online. Students and social media As a middle school teacher, I am well aware that the majority of my students participate in social media of some form. We spent time last year as an entire staff to implement 2 days worth of digital citizenship lessons to our students. 7th grade focused on digital footprints. I think the lesson was a great idea, but it was never revisited. Almost our whole student body follows each other on snapchat and LOTS of rumors and cyberbullying goes on there. Sometimes parents will come in and report the bullying that has gone on online outside of school. I am torn on whether this is the school's responsibility or the parents responsibility. What is a child was bullying someone not at our school online? I had a student last year who had an exponential amount of followers on instagram and had a public account. She shared this with with me during our digital footprint lesson. Her family had been in the news for a tragic accident which led to a lot of students and people online wanting to follow her. She admitted that she did not know who more than half of her followers were and they were able to view pictures of her all the way back into elementary school. A quick google of her name also led to a long list of results including many pictures of her. It made me feel sick to think about the damage that these kids could be doing to their digital footprints. I definitely think early middle school is the place for a strong unit on digital footprints.
5 Comments
Shawn
3/4/2018 07:31:38 am
Just like with anything new it can be hard to get others involved. The great thing with Twitter is that even through you don't have many teachers in your district using the social media platform, you still have access to many other educators. I can only imagine the type of bulling that goes on in the upper grades with social media. It is a fine line us teachers walk. I think speaking to the students would be a good thing to be because it only shows them that what they "think" no one will see or find out about it not the truth. I think this idea of a digital foot pint is so abstract to them that is had not set in the consequences it can hold.
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Scott Marsden
3/4/2018 03:54:46 pm
Christina,
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Diana
3/4/2018 04:33:40 pm
Christina,
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Joseph Williams
3/5/2018 05:30:26 pm
You nailed Twitter! Up until, well, a month ago, I felt the same way about a Twitter account, another site I have to pay attention to. However, just within these past few weeks I found numerous resources and teachers that are sharing empowering information that is leading to me pushing my own practice.
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Madeleine O'Rear
3/6/2018 06:53:02 pm
I could not agree more with you about Twitter! I am a little bit behind you though, as I just created my first account. I am not a big social media user and Twitter never really appealed to me. I did hear once when I was getting my credential that there was "a lot of resources" on Twitter, but this was a huge understatement. I do have to admit that it is a little overwhelming. I like the idea of waiting until next year to participate in more chats, I think it is important to limit what you take in just to save our sanity! Thanks for the great post!
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April 2018
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Theo Crazzolara