Due to having teacher friends from a wide variety of school and meeting Kenan fellows from across the state, I am aware that districts, schools, and individual teachers have a different comfort level when it comes to social media. What is clear is that it is not going away. Districts, schools, teachers, and students therefore have the responsibility to clarify what is and is not acceptable use of social media in an educational setting.
I realized I didn’t actually know our school district’s policy about social media (yikes), so I looked it up. Below are some of the highlights from “CCPS Policy 7335: Employees and Social Media,” which you can access in full here:
“School personnel may use only school-controlled technological resources and social media tools to communicate directly with students… An employee seeking to establish a social networking website for school-related purposes must have prior written approval from the superintendent or designee and principal…Employees are prohibited from knowingly communicating with current students through a personal social network page…”
These rules leave me with more questions than answers. Which social media tools are considered “school controlled”? Would me developing a WordPress blog for my students to check homework need written approval from my principal? What about teachers who have students follow them on Twitter? Even if teachers use a professional Twitter account, students are still using personal accounts, so does that violate the rule?
In the name of willingness to “try new things” (but still working within the vague parameters of our county’s policy), I came up with an idea for my own social media test flight. With one of my classes, I introduced a “class discussion board.” Students could post questions about homework/assessments, comments, additional resources, etc. I would monitor the board from time to time, but would not participate. It was supposed to encourage the development of a class community.
Unfortunately, right after I announced its existence, I went through what I now see as a ridiculously lengthy list of extensively punitive rules. Do NOT use the discussion board to complain about the class. Do NOT reveal homework answers. Do NOT blah blah blah. If you do ANY OF THESE THINGS EVEN ONCE YOU WILL BE BANNED FROM THE DISCUSSION BOARD.
This apparently scared the crap out of all my students and the discussion board pretty much looked like this:
So I tried again. I changed the purpose of the board: students would use it to post interesting resources connecting with our class material—news stories, videos, comics, etc. I guess they decided that they did not have to fear my wrath if they accidentally revealed a homework answer, because they discussion board began to look like this:
Baby steps.