Social Media in schools

Do you believe that social media is here to stay? I do. I see many applications in business as a way for businesses to connect with customers. In business, it may even evolve into an essential community building tool. But I am not so sure that social media will play as an essential role in community building in education for day to day teaching.

Social media is the technology that makes online community building possible, not the community itself. It allows for the creation of and service to, online communities, where dialogue and interaction among community founders and members are possible. Some examples include but are not limited to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Picasa and MySpace.

It is true that electronic communication and social media create new options for extending and enhancing education. However, in surveying my students, they unanimously said that they would prefer going to a class to interact socially and academically with other students. Also, they said that they would want to have content explained to them thoroughly and receive immediate feedback to their work to ensure they are on the right path.


There is no question that a website may be a very important part of your online presence, but it is not a very effective community-building tool. However, a website can become a platform from which you launch and serve your student communities. Think of your website as your classroom where you teach students using social media as the place you guide and push the thinking of students.

There is one critically important thing for a teacher to understand about both of the online student community types: The teacher cannot entirely control community behavior. Members – students and prospects – control the conversation in the community. The teacher can only create and influence the community by establishing and demonstrating school community values.

As an addendum, professional bodies such as the Ontario College of Teachers recently posted a Professional Advisory: Use of Electronic Communication and Social Media. The advisory offers advice to teachers on how best to use electronic communication and social media with students.

Where do you stand? What’s your story?

image via My Crowd

Understanding Creative Commons - Case Study

Learning to teach online PDF
Copyright and creative commons is particularly important in the educational context where content is often copied, shared, reused and remixed by both teachers and students in the learning and teaching process. This episode explains the basics of creative commons. We examine some of the different license terms and combinations, and offer some insights into which might be better suited for educational purposes. We also discuss how to generate your own creative commons license and what to do when your work is not attributed by others.

Reference: Australian Learning and Teaching Council

You can't give what you don't got...

even if …
i pads or i phones or
moodle or google or
blogs or gadgets or bing…
That you use is the very best one,
Teaching SMART is so much fun.

If you are “new” to the world of teaching with technology, remember you can’t give what you don’t got. Keep in mind that every teacher and every team has a hand in the school improvement plan. Generally, all plans are designed to increase student achievement. If you want to add technology into the plan you have to identify and pursue SMART goals. Otherwise technology for the sake of technology is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Key Questions:
1) What knowledge and skills should each student acquire from the use of the technology?
2) How do we know if the student has mastered the intended outcomes?
3) How will we respond when a student has initial difficulty achieving the established standards you set?

An ounce of planning:
Once the above questions are asked and answered, we are able to align our time, money, and energy in a way that would give us the biggest return on investment of our scarce resources. This leads to celebrations. No matter how big or how small, we look for celebrations and the use of technology with our students in their inevitable achievement.

I encourage you to keep tweeting, moodling, googling, blogging – SHARING … with the goal toward student achievement and engagement. I look forward to learning from each other, only then will I be able to give what I got.

What's your story?

photo credit flickr

The Business of Education

For a student, it could be a key to the future.

Key Role of Education-Business Partnerships by Kyra Kester
Role of Business in Education by Alan Baas

Below Apple and the classroom:

Question of Ethics

There is that famous word again "Ethics". What does it mean? Is it objective, subjective or both? Is there a moral system when it comes to the Internet and the use of the tools? Who establishes it? Do we reinvent what is right and wrong? The frontier of ethics is both utilitarian and absolutist. The questions raised are both practical and philosophical. I look forward to exploring this with you.

Today and tomorrow....

Information technology allows us to generate and manipulate knowledge, and to communicate ideas and values quickly, irrespective of geographical distance with the use of tools of the Internet like blogs, groups, readers... . Are we giving our students the ability to define information needs, locate, analyze, organize and present for real audiences?

International Day

Math, writing, reading and other subjects are interwoven in International Day. Grade 9 students, Renée and Megan, share their experiences of this creative course in their school.
What kind of real-world applications are going on in your school?
How are your students engaged?

***Watch for more on International Day***

Poised for presentation

Why are we so worried about using technology in the classroom? We buy our kids laptops, digital cameras, cell phones... do we see evidence of it in the classroom? Our kids are poised for presentation, but are we denying them opportunity in our schools?

Cause for celebration...

This is my first post to a blog. I am redefining the boundaries of my vocation as teacher, administrator, author, musician, and computer hack. I want to promote the discussion around learning. I am hoping to connect with other "bloggers" who are prepared to challenge, ask questions of each other, review other blogs, and refer to each other as sources of information around education. I am seeking to discover innovation in classrooms around the world. All are welcome to participate ... students, parents, teachers, teacher aides, administrators, community volunteers, and people in business, to explore complex issues, to incorporate their projects and practices, to encourage and inspire, and to investigate rich topics for personal and professional growth.