This dovetails into Anderson, Steven. How to create social media guidelines for your school. Edutopia. our next reading. As long as we are creating policy one school at a time, we will never be able to tame this beast. I don't understand why teachers in the trenches are supposed to create policy that "may" be adopted. While they give the school attorney and school board the luxury of time to decide what they get around to adopting. It seems to me that there should be policy made at the top that is reviewed at least once per year and teachers updated accordingly. This should not be left to individual schools. I am concerned that the school attorney is not focused on learning objectives but protecting the district from liability aligned to outdated laws that do not even begin to cover today's online realities.Our next reading, Figueroa, A. (2018). Teach students to use social media the right way and the possibilities are endless. NPREd. I think the title says it all, who is the arbiter of the right way? In Benmar, K. (2015). My favorite teachers use social media: a student perspective. Education Week. I believe that teaching should not be a popularity contest. Having students determine policy is a bit of the tail wagging the dog. We want to be sure that we are hearing what students are saying but we are also being the adult in the room that makes sure they eat their vegetables.
I loved reading George Couros. Couros, G. (2017). Do you see distraction or opportunity? #SocialLeadia. His insight is right on point. My favorite quote of all the reading was "...social media is like water. It is everywhere. You can either let us drown or teach us to swim." I agree that we need to provide this very 21st century skill. I am glad for the resources at CommonSense.org, TeachingTolerance.org and the Anti-defamation league among others. I understand when he wants us to drown out the negative voices, but remember that is just another form of censorship. We need to hear everyone and while we might not give the voices that are negative center stage, we need to address their concerns in a more private venue. Great for classroom discussion.
Now the Jones, G. (2018). Six Ways to Avoid Those Social Media Landmines. NEA Today. article was somewhat helpful. I think that following District Policy is too little, too late. Although I will use #youwouldsaythattomyface, #thinkb4upost, #commonsense and just for fun #shelfies and I agree that sharing personal appropriate details does in fact make a teacher more approachable, authentic and human. I disagree when it comes to the advice to remain a lurker. It is better to be an upstander, not that it is wise to engage with trolls. It is good to teach our students about the damage trolls do and to remember that staying silent can make us complicit. Check out "The Danger of Silence" TED talk that I found on twitter after I searched #empatico.org.
Lastly, I checked out the District links. I was disappointed that the policies that could cover Social Media were not emphasized in their own link that could clearly state policies that address social media. While there are policies about Safety, Media and Bullying, I think that we need to see examples and non-examples of what is being talked about.
Social media can be used in the classroom as Matt Miller states in his book "Tech Like a Pirate". In 4th grade we can provide the experience in a "walled garden" to teach how Digital Citizenship can meld with SEL and drive students toward Social Leadership. I really appreciate how Matt Miller demonstrates how we can do this. If we follow his guidelines, we can provide Social Media 101 to the littles. The tools we can use are many and varied, from paper and crayons to Flipgrid, and the G-suite tools we can begin bringing social media curriculum safely into the elementary classroom. This is a brave new world.