Social Media Overview

To summarize my last few blog posts, social media empowers educators to develop their personal learning environment and also motivate students.  With any new initiative, there are issues that education realm must address before launching a full campaign with it in the entity.  Policies like Acceptable Use Policies and Internet Safety Policies can layout expectations and proper use while defining inappropriate use.  With the proper foundation of planning and reinforcement, education can unlock the potential of social media.

Social media can transform the educational landscape.  Current practices involve a teacher in the front of the room asking questions.  Students raise their hands and one student is called on to answer the question.  The quiet student in the back who has great ideas may never get a chance to voice his/her opinion, because of shyness or never being given the opportunity.  Social media solves this issue.  Everyone can participant and everyone has an equal voice.  With everyone contributing, the classroom conversation will have more depth and more angles of the topic will be discussed.  The most important aspect is that everyone learns from the activity. 

Social Media in Education Overview

Social Media in Education

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Difficult Decisions

 

Within education, many issues linger.  Should students be exposed to social media?  Is BYOD the solution to shrinking technology budgets?  Should high school courses go virtual?  Today’s post suggests several possible strategies and solutions to help solve these dilemmas.

 

First, should social media be in schools?  Both examples of schools using social media and blocking social media exist.  Some schools are doing an excellent job of integrating social media into the delivery of curriculum.  Stansbury (2011) from eSchool News writes about ten innovative ways that ten different schools utilize social media effectively.  Education World (2012) points out a number of school districts leveraging social media to educate students in a 21^st century fashion. 

 

As I examine the question further, I believe the question is too broad and vague.  Schools district vary greatly in culture and missions within a state let alone the country.  I think we need to analyze whether or not social media will help accomplish the district mission within the district schools.  Some schools have educators who are extremely tech savvy and adventurous while other faculties cling to proven methods.  To some faculties, social networking is unknown and scary which leads to a bad fit for the school district.  On the other hand, others cry out for the privilege of using social media to motivate students.  Before a decision is made either way, a full evaluation should occur of educators, administrators, students, and parents.  Forcing an initiative will only lead to disaster.

 

Examining another current issue within schools, BYOD, I see a multitude of variables.  Just like with social media, a full evaluation along with site survey offers the best solutions.  Bringing Your Own Device initiative throws variables out in all directions.  How will the teacher now what to do when there are 30 different devices in the classroom?  What will discipline look like?  How do you prevent cheating?  What is the student’s device has inappropriate content on it?  What if a student hacks another student?  Will the network infrastructure handle all the devices?  Is the Internet pipe large enough?  All of these questions plus more must be answered.  Again it comes down to culture and administrative support.  BYOD is an excellent solution for some districts and not for others.  If BYOD is a good fit, then the educators need the proper professional development, so they know how to handle common technical issues.  The biggest issue with a BYOD school would be making sure the teacher focuses on delivering content and teaching a lesson rather than focusing on getting the technology to work properly.

 

Finally, should high schools offer courses online?  Once again, I say it depends on the culture of the district.  Some districts are not ready to offer online courses.  Many issues could hold the district back from offering the virtual courses from lack of technology funds to poor course management.  If districts do offer courses online, my biggest advice is to make sure there are multiple support systems in place.  The administrators, teachers, students, and parents will all need support in the way of technical help, motivation to stay on task, and motivation to remain on time.  Districts attempting this initiative will require a well thought out plan and great project management.

 

I realize that each of these questions could have a book written about them.  I also realize that there exist strong opinions on both sides of the argument.  Most importantly, I think districts should make these difficult decisions based upon the culture of the district and for the best interests of the students.  The students are the most important aspect to a district and the district must find the best methods to give them the best education possible.

 

 

 

Social Media Resources

• http://www.edsocialmedia.com/
• http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/10/21/ten-ways-schools-are-using-social-media-effectively/
• http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/social-media-tips-administrators.shtml
• http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/03/the-frontier-of-classroom-technology/leverage-social-medias-potential
• http://thejournal.com/webcasts/2012/05/dellsonicwall_enabling-securing-anytime-anywhere-learning.aspx?sc_lang=en

 

BYOD

• http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/051412-byod-policy-259225.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2012-05-15
• http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/05/10/are-you-ready-for-byod.aspx
• http://edreach.us/2011/11/21/edreachs-top-posts-for-byod/
• http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/04/28/mobile-device-management-and-bring-your-own-device-in-education-environments/

 

 

Online course

• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html?pagewanted=all
• http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/05/can-young-students-learn-from-online-classes
• http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring121/dodd121.html

 

 

Review of Online Resources

In education, many magazines and online publications offer free subscriptions to provide educators up to date information and solution for real classroom situations. My favorite free online subscriptions consist of THE Journal, Tech and Learning, eSchool News, District Administration, Campus Technology, Network World, and Education Week.  I also frequent the National Media Consortium to read the Horizon Report, especial the K-12 edition.  I would also recommend becoming members of ISTE and CoSN

The journals, newsletters, online resources, and memberships discuss relevancy of specific current issues in an educator or administrator’s world.  THE Journal focuses on transforming education through instructional technology.  The resource provides a multitude of tools to anyone involved with education.  First, the journal provides articles on highly debated topics such as the BYOD movement (Are You Ready for BYOD?), properly preparing students for the digital world (Turning Students into Good Digital Citizens), the new CIPA law (The New CIPA deadline), and social media emersion (Enabling and Securing Anytime, Anywhere Learning).  Additionally, the journal site reviews education software, apps, and hardware and tries to provide the best tested solutions to the readers.

Tech and Learning relates to educators in a very similar way to THE Journal.  Tech and Learning offers best practices, blogs on a variety of education topics, free webinars, forums video, and a subscription to a free paper magazine.  I have read several excellent articles from the best practice section of the website, such as Getting to Know a Digital Textbook and Social Networking or Social Suicide: The Impact of Social Networking on Virtual DNA.  Moreover, the video vault is extraordinary.  The website video section provides videos of headline speakers discussing current matters.  Additionally, they record all over their conferences in case you could not attend.

eSchool News complements the two previous journals by offering additional great articles, funding resources and upcoming events.  The website explains how to write grants effectively and how to get your proposal noticed.  Along with suggestions, the site gives the names, locations, and deadlines a plethora of grant opportunities.  The event segment lists large education conferences, notifies of updates to the conferences, and collects all the conferences into one viewing area.

My favorite recent resource is Network World.  The free electronic newsletters and magazine subscription also adds to my knowledge and keeps me fascinated with the topics.  The newsletters send out the top most read articles and even though the articles relate to technology, I can always connect them to some facet in the education world whether its instructional technology or technology to keep the organization running.  I believe the articles on this site are top notch and the authors create a real sense of urgency to motivate change.  Some of the recent articles include Social Media a Boon for Business, but Create Security Quagmire and Is your BYOD Policy Out of Date.  I truly enjoy the slideshows.  The slideshows concentrates a great deal of content into quick to read text and pictures.  Some examples include Top 20 Windows 8 Features, 10 Ways to make Android Faster, More Productive and More Secure than iPhone, and IT Toolbox for the iPad.

The other online journals, reports and memberships I mentioned in the introduction are excellent resources as well.  I will write about them in another post.  For now I think I have given you enough to quander.  Enjoy the resources.  There are more to come.

General education issues

In discussions with our CTU course, schools continue to have several general issues.  First, copyright artistic license always starts of debate over who owns the intellectual property.  Second, reward systems cause distance and separation among staff.  Third the opportunity for technical training is very limited.  The technical dissemination continues as just a shot in the hand without any scaffolding or follow up.  Lastly, transactional costs tend to burden the educational entity.

Copyright artistic license creates two major issues in education.  First, many teachers do not understand copyright laws.  Many assume that since they are in education that fair use applies to everything.  Hence, they use images, video and quotes without referencing the author.  Additionally, they photocopy entire works without giving proper acknowledgement or payment.  Most of the cause revolves misunderstanding and lack of knowledge regarding copyright law.  The second issue that involves copyright artistic license pertains to ownership of intellectual property.  Does the school own the work or does the teacher?  If the work is created after hours but for class presentation, is it the school or teacher’s property.

Currently, Pennsylvania is trying to construct a teacher scoring rubric for teacher evaluation.  Most teachers are against the movement, while others want to make sure they are held accountable.  The battle has been raging in our state government for quite a while.  This battle also pertains to the rewards system in education.  Should core curriculum teachers who must have students pass state core standardize tests be assessed similarly to the teachers who teach electives that are not under the same amount of stress?  Should teachers receive differentiated pay based upon their student test scores or the subjects that they teach?

The next major concern deals with technical training.  Teachers have very few in service or training days, because they have summers off.  Some teachers have as few as two days of training for an entire year.  In those two days, they must learn all the changes involved with their curriculum standards, learn new technology, new school policies, and much more.  They receive a quick shot in the arm and don’t receive any reinforcement training.  This lack of training has caused a real divide in teachers’ ability involving technology.  Some teachers develop a phobia for technology while others excel.  The ones who pay the ultimate price for lack of teacher training are the students.

The final item for discussion involving school issues has to do with transaction costs.  Transaction costs consist of expending limited resources.  Time, focus and money seem to always be limited resources within schools.  School days are shorter than the average eight hour work day and school only lasts for 10 months.  With limited administration staff, typically the squeaky wheel always gets the attention, regardless if it’s the best idea, solution, or student.  Focus usually goes to the student who requires discipline and not the student who wants to do well, but needs a little extra assistance.  Finally, with budget cuts administration staffs are shrinking and the student to teacher ratio in the classroom is growing.

Social media issues in schools that must be overcome.

Schools face a difficult decision when it comes to social media.  The social media scene has exploded for middle and high school aged students.  The social media environment offers a place for students to express their feelings, build friendships, receive advice, and gain popularity.  However, some dangers do lurk within social media.  Schools must decide to filter or open social media.  If schools decide to filter, then which sites are blocked and which are not.  My posting lists several specific problems that schools face when allowing students access to social media.

According to Nancy Willard (2011) from Education World, social media attract many teens, some of who make poor choices.  Willard also points out that many parents do not pay attention to what their children post on the social media sites.  Additional, she inserts that teens add many friends that they may not know just to increase the number of friends on their list.  Many predators take advantage of the unknowing teens who accepts all friend requests.

Moreover, Davis (2010) from Digital Directions stress that schools must follow the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act which does not allow children under the age of 13 to join social media sites.  However, thousands of students under age 13 have social media sites.  Additionally, schools must follow the Children’s Internet Protection Act which protects students from offensive content over the Internet.  Davis also points out that if students are not taught proper etiquette in social media at school, then chances are they will not learn how to act appropriately and will become abusive in social media.

Furthermore, the Huffington Post (2012) reports that teachers who friend students in social media run the possibility of engaging in inappropriate relationships.  The Huffington Post also sites exposure to inappropriate content, sexual predators, cyberbullying, and harassment as main reasons to avoid allowing social media into the school environment.

Social media is a new medium and phenomena that people are still trying to define.  Social media does not behave like anything experienced in the past.  Additionally, the characteristics of social media are dynamic and adapt well to many situations.  Due to the adaptability of social media, it is hard for schools to filter, leverage, block, or promote.  Many cultural changes must take place and challenges overcome before social media’s potential is unlocked within schools.

References

Davis, M. R. (2010). Social Networking Goes to School.  Digital Connections. Retrieved on May 9, 2012 from http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2010/06/16/03networking.h03.html.

Huffington Post. (2012). Social Networking in Schools: Educators Debate the Merits of Technology in Classrooms.  Retrieved on May 9, 2012 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/27/social-networking-schools_n_840911.html.

Willard, N. (2011). Schools and Online Social Networking. Education World. Retrieved on May 9, 2012 from http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/issues/issues423.shtml.