5 ideas for #ConnectedEducators to connect students #CE13

This piece was originally posted last year in SmartBlog on Education in Ideas that Work, Social Media in Education as part of Connected Educator Month. This takes place this year in October. The U.S. Department of Education’s Connected Educators initiative seeks to celebrate and encourage educators at all levels to collaborate and participate in online learning resources and communities. This piece  is just as relevant today, as it was last year when it was written to support this initiative.

 

Unlike their parents, today’s students can communicate, collaborate, cooperate, and connect with the world in meaningful ways that were never before possible. It is incumbent upon educators to support students in doing this effectively in order to empower them to do work that will not only lead them to personal success, but is also worthy of the world.

So, how can educators do this?

Here are five ways to help your students get connected:

5 Best Practices to Consider When Using Facebook with Students

This post was original featured on Smartblogs on Education

Innovative educators realize that to run for office, run a business, or change the way things are run where you work or play, being savvy with the use of social media is important. Now you are ready to take the plunge with your students to help them change their lives and the world for the better. Before you get started, consult with your school or district to find out their guidelines and policies and keep these best practices in mind.

1. Friending Some educators do not realize that you don’t need to friend your students to interact with them online. You can create a page or group that your students can like or join without being one another’s friend or seeing one another’s feeds.  Connecting with students via groups and pages only is a great practice for educators concerned about keeping the lines of professional and personal distinctly separated.

The inner net - tool of con (or discon) nection ?

The problems of our world used to be too big and too distant to know of it widespread existence, but with the internet, our world is small and close for us now to make a difference.

We can now get crowds around a cause.

Connect ignorance to knowledge
The isolated to college
Orphans to their fathers
Donors to non profits

Injustices to those who can stop it.

Now that we have such power, what are you helping your students to connect to?

Facebook, Edmodo, & Schoology. Oh my! Choosing a social network platform for learning

When deciding on a social networking platform to use with your students and/or the school community, there are several considerations to keep in mind.  What are the age restrictions of a particular platform? Which platform is most comfortable for students? What are the teaching and learning goals you have in mind?  What are your school’s filtering settings? What is your district’s social media or internet responsible use policy?

Below is a comparison of three platforms, Facebook, Schoology, and Edmodo. It is important to keep these questions in mind as you consider the pros and cons of each.

The competition: Facebook vs Edmodo or Schoology

5 ideas to inspire students to use social media for good

"High School Musical" star Monique Coleman is a youth empowerment advocate who recently provided advice about using social media to do good.  Below is the advice she shared on her site http://gimmemo.com followed by her video where you can hear her for yourself sharing these ideas.  If you like what she has to say, you’ll be happy to know you can connect with Monique on Twitter.  She is co-hosting the March 18th Student Voice Twitter chat on the topic, "How can influential figures and organizations play a role in empowering the student voice?" Use the hashtag #StuVoice and tag Monique at @GimmeMoTalk. The chat starts at 8:30 p.m. eastern standard time.

5 ideas to use social media for good

What's in your feed? 3 ideas to manage content on Facebook, Twitter, & Google+

Guest post by Josh Birdwell | 19-year-old Co-founder of Skillstarter

For some, social media is a place to announce or read every thought or post pictures of the weekend's regrets.

Not for me.

I am a targeted user of social media who knows how to customize platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to work for me.

Here’s how.

1) Facebook
I use Facebook groups, which are a big part of my browsing time, with Uncollege Network and the Under 20 Network taking a front seat. I have attended events connected to both of them in San Francisco and New York City. As a result, Facebook has become a place of empowerment and connectivity to invaluable communities.  

To make Facebook as efficient as possible, I unsubscribe to “friends” who post random or senseless updates. I also eliminate boring Farmville feed updates by turning off all senseless notifications and hide pointless updates.

As a result, every I visit my homepage I end up opening articles or connecting with friends globally. I chat with my friends from the UK to Sweden on a regular basis. Befriending self-driven people allows me to receive advice and support in my life. I thought I was alone in some areas, but boy was I wrong; I am finding more people who are in the same boat.

It doesn’t end with Facebook.

Creating avatars and icons instead of photographs

By Susan Ettenheim |  High School art/media/library/technology teacher

 

We've found that the whole problem of students posting personal photographic representations is gone when we teach them about making avatars or icons as personal representations. Here is the lesson we use for Youth Voices for building Avators / Icons. You will see that this lesson is in the context of our site, Youth Voices, but it certainly can be used in any context.

 

Building Avatars/Icons

Introduce yourself by putting an avatar/icon in your user posts. Have your avatar/icon appear next to your posts in Youth Voices. You can then make different avatars/icons for different kinds of posts. An avatar is a representation of the essence of you.

Essential Questions

• What is special to you and about you?
• What is important to you?
• How can these things come together as a visual representation of you?
• How will creating and using a visual representation of yourself help a young person at another school relate to your life and get to know you?

Social media for teachers

Illustrated by Peter Grundy

From Scholastic Instructor

SOURCES: Social media PD: Project Tomorrow, “Speak Up 2011.” Twitter: Semiocast. YouTube:  NielsenWire, “August 2012, Top U.S. Online Video Sites.” Facebook: Yahoo! Finance, “Number of Active Users at Facebook over the Years.” Pinterest: Repinly.com, “Pinterest Stats”; fastcodesign.com, “The Astounding Power of Pinterest.”

8 ways to use social media to connect and coordinate with parents

Social media can be a powerful tool to coordinate and connect with parents.  At the school level, this is important work for everyone, from the classroom teacher to the principal. Some districts even have paid school employees called parent coordinators who are responsible for engaging with and involving parents in the school community. It is their job to create a welcoming environment for parents as well as to identify and address parent and related school/community issues.

While many of us are familiar with traditional notes home in the backpack, flyers, and newsletters, social media takes our ability to create, maintain, and grow connections with parents to a whole new level.

Here are some ideas that explain how.

1) Facebook

Parent Coordinator Sara Cottone of P.S. 46 in Staten Island, N.Y., welcomes parents to “like” the Facebook page she created for them. Most recently, the page was a terrific vehicle for sharing planning and logistics information as it pertained to the bus strike. Earlier this year it was a godsend as one of the few ways parents could communicate during Superstorm Sandy. The page is also used to update parents on trips, school performances and other events like picture day. The page is interactive, too. Parents can use the page to comment, ask questions and find out information. Cottone and other parents are always on hand to respond and provide feedback.

For more information visit:  Parent Guide to Facebook.

Embracing social media use in schools with a toolkit for administrators

Looks like more and more cities are following the lead of NYC and embracing the use of social media in schools. Most recently the Chicago Public Schools has put together toolkit of resources—video, documents, and links to other sites—for principals and staff who want to use social media to connect with their school communities. 



The toolkit, has useful resources that will be helpful regardless of what city or town you work in. It highlights creative and effective social media use by schools with a focus on Twitter and Facebook.

The toolkit includes:

Extraordinary education happenings in 2012

17-year-old Nikhil Goyal nails it with his take on the Best of 2012: The Five Most Extraordinary Things to Happen in Education for GOOD magazine.

Goyal hits on five transformative developments effecting education this year.  The one I'm most jazzed about for innovative educators is how students were able to use the power of social media to have a voice in the education conversation.  

From Goyal:

The Students Speak Out: 

Students around the nation have seized the national microphone and have begun articulating their voices in education. With hundreds of student protests documented, young people are no longer willing to sit idly on the sidelines. In September, I published my first book on revolutionizing education from a student’s perspective. Earlier this month, Stephanie Rivera and few other college students launched Students United for Public Education in an effort to stop the takeover of public education in America. The group even had a protest. 

And this past summer, Zak Malamed founded the StuVoice movement, corralling student leaders onto one platform, giving spotlight to their voices, and making some dents in education policy. For one, Malamed, Matthew Resnick, Joshua Lafazan, myself, and a few other students signed a letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo demanding that students be added onto the New York State Education Reform Commission. With the power of social media, we will not stop petitioning, marching, protesting, and rallying until our voices are heard and represented. As educator Diane Ravitch once said, “When the students awaken, the national conversation will change.”

One of the most import jobs of innovative educators is empowering our students to have their voices heard and represented. It is imperative that we ensure students are prepared to effectively use the tools of their world to change their world.  

Read the rest of Goyal's extraordinary happenings here. 

Connect students to industry thought leaders with LinkedIn

LinkedIn has recently introduced the ability for members to directly follow over 100 of the world’s most influential industry thought leaders who will be sharing content about professional issues and topics. This provides a new way for young people to tap into the insight and professional advice of leaders from a variety of fields, including Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Caterina Fake, Craig Newmark, President Barack Obama,

 Cory Booker, and many more. This is a great way for students to kickstart their own professional and personal success.

These leaders will post content that includes videos, photos, and Slideshare presentations. 

Some of the first topics to be addressed include:

• “The six lessons I live by” by William Morris Endeavor Co-CEO Ari Emanuel
• “Impact of poverty on nutrition” by celebrity chef and author Marcus Samuelsson
• “It’s not just who you know, it’s what they know” by LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner
• “It’s not about you: the truth about social media marketing” by Code for America adviser and O’Reilly Media CEO and founder Tim O’Reilly
• And the list goes on and on

What’s nice is that this isn’t just one way communication.  There’s interaction via a section for comments where they can have discussions on LinkedIn or share and discuss the content using social media or email.

You can see what leaders are available to follow here.

Celebrate Digital Citizenship Day with Free Digital Citizenship Starter Kit

October 2nd is Digital Citizenship Day and to help commemorate the day and the rest of the year, Edmodo & Common Sense Media have teamed up to create a Digital Citizenship Starter Kit! The Digital Citizenship Starter Kit includes a poster, as well as a series of activities and lessons designed to introduce digital citizenship concepts directly in Edmodo. All lessons are based on Common Sense Media's K-12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship curriculum and include topics such as:

• Internet safety and security
• Privacy
• Plagiarism
• Cyberbullying

You can download the starter kit here and discuss best practices with other educators by joining the Digital Citizenship Community on Edmodo code 6rvzx5 to bring students and innovative educators into the discussion.

Free digital citizenship event!

If you're in Manhattan, adults and teens are invited to an important discussion about growing up online. Moderated by MTV news correspondent, Sway. It's teens' chance to share what they love - and what they don't love - about the digital world. Plus, they'll showcase teen-produced videos and a youth performance on digital citizenship.

WHEN: Today from 5-6:30pm
WHERE: LaGuardia High School, 100 Amsterdam Ave. (at 65th St)
COST: FREE, but you must register here to guarantee your place!

When it comes to making students dreams come true, schools fall short

"Think of something...anything you want to make happen. Get it in your mind and I’ll tell you how you can get the funding to make that dream come true."

What if “THAT” was how we motivated our students?  What if “THAT” is what we valued in school? What if schools supported our students in accomplishing “THAT?”

Slava Rubin CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest global crowdfunding platform asked that question to Makers Faire attendees yesterday.  He went on to explain exactly how anyone can achieve that goal.

So what is Rubin’s advice for success?

5 steps to building social media presence from scratch

Gone are the days when imparting knowledge was the primary work of a teacher. Today’s teachers need to be able to support their students in knowing how to effectively connect, communicate, collaborate, cooperate, and create. This means that to prepare today’s youth for success in the world, educators must become savvy users of social media. Opting out of online worlds which students can use to change the world, is no longer an acceptable option for teachers.  

But getting started can be scary.

The video below features my interview with Author Learning Center where I share ideas for how authors, and really anyone, can begin to build their social media presence.  Below the video are the ideas spelled out with a focus on education for innovative educators who are interested in developing a robust online presence and start connecting with others who share their ideas.
  
5 steps to building social media presence from scratch

Meeting the faces behind the minds I love on Twitter at ISTE

At the recent International Society for Technology Educator’s (ISTE) Tweetup I had the opportunity to meet with the faces behind the minds I interact with throughout the year. With smiles and hugs abound, those in attendance didn’t miss a beat in picking up conversations face-to-face that had begun online.

Those that use social media for learning understand the power of connections and attachments made possible by the platform. Unfortunately many of us work in schools and districts that have administrators and policy makers ignorant about use these platforms, making rules, policies, and guidelines that keep students stuck in the past.

Their conversations are familiar...
Our kids need to learn to speak eye to eye, not thumb to thumb.
Our kids don’t know how to talk to each other anymore.

Looking to create a social media or BYOD policy? Look no further.

Editor’s note: I have received about a dozen requests for advice about policies concerning social media, BYOT, and cell phones. This is a hot issue. I hope this post will help address the concerns of others who are grappling with this topic.

Many schools and districts are putting in place policies about gadgets and media rather than people and behavior. In many cases this work is being guided by outdated policymakers and lawyers who don’t use the media or gadgets about which they are making policy. If they did, they’d realize this makes no sense. Imagine in their day if people made policies about telephones, televisions, books, films, pencil/pen/paper. It simply doesn't make sense and is not necessary. there are forward thinking schools and districts that get this.

Patrick Larkin and Eric Sheninger are both principals who understand technology and digital media and have put in a common sense policy to address it. Larkin explains that “at Burlington High School they do not have separate policies. They are all integrated into one.” Sheninger goes on further to say that “At New Milford High School our expectations for device and social media use are all interconnected. There are no long, drawn out policies for BYOT, cell phone use, or social media. Each of these tools and their use in a learning environment are reflected in our Acceptable Use Policy.” Sheninger adds that “as the building leader, he can adapt policies for the students at his school as necessary.”

Developing Online Learning Communities - Consider This!

Editor's note: This is part 2 in a look at effective online learning communities. Find out what it takes to be an effective community leader in part 1.


As more and more districts, give in and extend at least a little rope when it comes to the creation and participation of online learning communities (see the policy in NYC here), more and more educators will need to understand how to develop a successful online learning community. In her recent interview for the  USDOE-supported Connected Educators site, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach author of The Connected Educator explains how to develop effective online learning communities.  You can read the full interview here.  Here is her advice.

1. Ask essential questions for building community -Know your need. Why is this community necessary? What is the purpose? What is it that we’re trying to accomplish? “What do we want to avoid?”
2. Work to ensure you have the composition of a great team -Bring people together who have different ideologies, different geography, different purposes and challenges to enable them to each bring what they did well to the table and people could learn from that. For example in the field of education this could mean public, private, Catholic, and other kinds of schools; educators teaching well-to-do, middle-class, and poor kids; educators in different states and nations, at different grade levels, and in different content areas and roles.
3. Create an environment where relationships can be built -With the right pieces in place members can build significant relationships and spontaneous collaborations could come out of that where none had previously existed. For example, an independent school community developed which was unusual because, for the first time, instead of seeing each other as competitors (independent schools often compete for the same student “clients”), they began to see themselves as collaborators.

Traits of an effective online community leader

In her recent interview for the  USDOE-supported Connected Educators site, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach author of The Connected Educator explains, among other things, what it takes to be an effective online community leader.  You can read the full interview here.  


Here is her advice. 

1. Be a social artist - This person needs to be someone who is, in researcher Etienne Wenger’s words, a “social artist.” It needs to be somebody who really understands how to pull out and weave conversations, how to build relationships in virtual space, how to connect with people “behind the scenes” and use them as bonding agents inside the community.
2. Have a go-to core - Many times those people charged with growing a community don’t make the effort (and a considerable effort is required) to make sure you have a core group of members—really diverse members, not just a clique—who are the go-to people. These are the people a community leader can e-mail and say, “Hey, did you see Dana’s post on so-and-so? Nobody’s responded and that’s one of your areas of expertise. Will you go and ask some good questions and give her some useful feedback?” Having core members who really understand how this kind of responsiveness can grow and sustain a dynamic community is huge.
3. Be humble - Be a humble person—what Robert K. Greenleaf called “servant leadership”—someone who doesn’t have to be in the spotlight to find satisfaction. This is a person who understands that his or her job is to build the sense of belonging within the community—the sense that there is something so valuable here that I’m not only willing, but also eager, to give some time to this.

Not Letting Teachers “Friend” & “Follow” Kids Online? Think Twice!

Guest post from Michelle Luhtala | Cross posted at Bibliotech.Me

Editor's Note: This was written in response this post on The Innovative Educator blog.

flickr.com/photos/digitas

Almost 70% of 18-34 year-olds expect 2012 presidential candidates to have a social media presence (Digitas, 2011). A 2008 study by Cone’s, Business in Social Media Study,revealed that 93% of social media users expect companies to have a social media presence, and 85% expect the businesses to interact with their clients via social media – it is safe to say that that percentage has increased in the past four years. Almost 60% of Fortune 500 companies maintain active corporate Facebook and/or Twitter accounts (Sociable360.com). As a school librarian, when I want to check out a publisher or book distributor, I look them up on Facebook and Twitter. I skip the website, because I know that the content will probably be six months old, at best, whereas the social media profile will be current. For customer support, I will choose Twitter over a phone tree, any day.