Tonight I had the chance to connect with 3 co-workers to try a Google Hangout on Air live session. Our topic of choice was digital citizenship. Check out our introductory conversation.
While we planned some questions to keep us focused, the discussion was free flow and from the heart. I hope this is the first of many recorded discussions on this important topic. Special thanks to Heidi Hobson, Susan Watt and Jeff Brown.
~Mark
This past week I had the privilege of taking an EQi training course with Marcia Hughes of Collaborative Growth. Part way through our first morning of training, we were working our way through a case study when one participant raised an interesting point about whether or not the notion of social media connections played a role in the EQi coaching process. A silence fell over the room as people started to ponder. What a GREAT question.
We really do live in an amazing and unique time. Never before have we been able to connect with people through so many different communication and collaboration tools, and many of them free! . Think of the choices: Skype, Google Hangouts, Facetime, Twitter, Facebook, G+, wikis, Google Docs, MSO365, texting etc. etc. Social media tools provide people with a means to have an online voice through blogging and other writing tools. This is a REALLY incredible time.
These tools have ‘reach’ and provide a gateway to connect and collaborate across the globe. I think it is important to play in this big sandbox to leverage the connections and opportunities – especially for students since this is the world they will work, live and function in. For those of us who knew the old ‘telephone only’ world and transitioned through email etc. en route to this technology rich world, we may have a better sense of when to connect face to face (F2F) or pick up the phone. While texting and social media offer so much potential, they may not be the best tools for every situation in our complex world.
I think this speaks directly to the need for digital citizenship and opportunities for students to learn these tools and become skilled them. In turn, having opportunities and situations to evaluate and select appropriate tools is an important step in building a confident skill set. I see all of this connected to building and managing working relationships, so I would cast my vote to YES, social media, online communication and collaboration tools do intersect with relationships and EQi by extension.
What are your thoughts? How would you vote? Feel free to add a comment or get in touch via Twitter.
~Mark
Meet Jenni van Rees.
After a casual conversation at Ed Camp Hamilton, and some email correspondence, I arranged to do an interview with WRDSB teacher Jenni van Rees to further explore her work in blogging with her grade one students. The interview was initially done live on the internet on QueST Radio 1-24 . The audio recording is now available as a resource to this blog post, and will also be rebroadcast on QueST Radio 1-24. Watch radio.markwcarbone.ca , Twitter and G+ for announcements.
1. Introductions
2. Professional technology interests
3. What drove your interest in getting your students online and blogging?
4. Administrative support?
5. What did you do in the area of communications with parents?
6. Describe/share how this has worked, benefits to students,
7. Did anything surprise you? anything unexpected happen?
8. How did you prepare the students in the area of digital citizenship?
9. Based on the results, will you continue to encorporate blogging as part of your instructional practice?
10. Closing comments.
Jenni provided excellent insights into these interview questions. Hear her thoughts on professional learning, role modelling, real world audience, digital citizenship and PLNs in the QueST Radio 1-24 broadcast recording .
Jenni’s class website
Jenni’s student blogging site
Jenni’s professional blog: Thinking about Teaching.
Collaborating with Division 18 in B.C.
Follow Jenni on Twitter
Follow Jenni’s on class on Twitter
Kathy Cassidy’s Connected from the Start: Global Learning in the Primary Grades
Happy learning.
~Mark
Each year, I look forward to opportunities to interact with our WRDSB students and have conversation about technology, learning and Board plans etc. My recent meeting with our student trustee group yielded some fantastic discussion, so I thought I would share a few highlights in this forum.
The trustee group submitted some questions ahead of time to create a framework for our discussion. They were interested to know more about:
After addressing their questions, we opened up the floor to additional questions from the student trustees. This lead to a wonderful discussion which brought together a number of interconnected ideas. I was very impressed that students were well aware of the need to manage their privacy online. Through our discussion we extended this to managing one’s online identity and reputation. I encouraged the students to see how ‘Googlable’ they were. Would their online reputation precede them? As a self reflection, do they choose to use social media, communication and collaboration tools for positive purposes? – and what might they change in their typical actions? After all, “the net does not forget”. Digital citizenship is something that must be lived, a way of being. I also took the time to talk about the expectations defined in the WRDSB Responsible Use Procedure.
CASA Conference Presentation Resources
Overview: This presentation covered the use of social media tools in the Waterloo Region District School Board as things are now. Time was also spent talking about the journey and the challenges.
Video Samples from the presentation:
Twitter
Facebook
Edmodo
Student Perspective
Student Trustee
Teacher Perspective
Principal Perspective
Comments from Twitter
Q&A from Today’s Meet backchannel (originally hosted at http://www.todaysmeet.com/casachat)
Q1: Do teachers friend students?
Yes and no, some do, others don’t. Generally teachers use Facebook groups or fan pages, but
certain functions need the ‘friend’ function to work properly. In these cases, teachers set their
security and privacy settings appropriately and follow professional code of conduct expectations.
Q2: What effort is required by teachers to monitor online content related to classroom use?
This will vary depending on the context, but is done according to our Responsible Use Procedure.
Q3: Who pays for increasing bandwidth needs?
Staff in IT Services monitor usage and need on an ongoing basis. Each year this is factored into our
budget process in the IT area.
Q4: What social media content is searchable?
This depends on particular social media tool. For example, Tweets (Twiiter) are searchable, private
Facebook content is not.
Q5: Is the LMS redundant technology?
No, the LMS provides a course structure and both collaboration and social media tools are used in
conjunction to support student learning.
Q6: How does Quest Radio 1-24 work?
This Internet radio station is hosted at Caster.fm A live encoder
is needed to send personally owned content or content used with permission to the station.
Related Resources
Canadian Association of School Administrators (CASA) conference.
Quest Radio 1-24 Programming Info Watch here for announcements regarding additional broadcasts of this session.
Join a live broadcast on Quest Radio 1-24.
~Mark and Ed
Thanks to a tweet from @trustsocmedia this week, I found out about the The Doc Zone feature titled Facebook Follies . Although I was not able to view the CBC broadcast, the title did capture my interest. Today, I took the time watch the online version of Facebook Follies .
In my view, the production was very well done. The realities, cautions, benefits and highlights of using Facebook, and social media tools in general, are all explored through real situations. To me, this speaks to the reasons why students need to be educated through authentic experiences about the use of social media tools, digital citizenship and managing your online profile/digital footprint.
Your online actions live forever. I applaud educators who are making efforts to embrace social media tools, leverage their power , teach and model ethical and responsible use.
~Mark
On Monday April 11th, the long awaited press release of the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) electronic communication and social media advisory was released. I was attending the OCT live presentation on Tuesday in Toronto, and viewed the advisory print document and watched the video to be well informed for the session.
My initial impression of the print document was that it was a well written, solid framework to guide educators into this new territory. I was very impressed with the video production as it captured a positive spirit for leveraging these new tools within our education system. I did feel that some additional clarification was required in the area of Facebook use, and planned my comments and questions for the live session.
It was interesting to watch the press and media take on the documents and follow the reactions via Twitter. As one would expect, reaction varied widely, tending towards the ‘too cautious’ end of the scale. Tuesday morning, I was able to have a conversation with Chris Vollum, an excellent speaker who has significant experience presenting social media sessions to school and parent audiences across the province and at many WRDSB schools. Chris, who was interviewed as part of the video, had a positive reaction and felt the overall message was positive. I also had a good phone discussion with Jane Mitchinson who has provided extensive leadership in technology and social media use within our Board.
The session was well organized, with the agenda organized as: presentation, table discussion and Q&A. I captured some of the important highlights and shared them on Twitter:
The table discussions were interesting. We were given 4 scenario questions to consider. All were great questions with pros and cons and certainly generated excellent discussion around the different viewpoints — risk factor(s), legal implications, empathy, professional approach.
In some ways, I enjoyed the Q&A best. Many good questions were asked, and gave further indication that there are multiple factors to consider in almost all situations. I did take the opportunity to raise a few points during the discussion:
OCT Backgrounder
OCT Advisory
OCT Social Media video
Viewpoint: Pipedreams (blog)
Viewpoint: Off the Record (blog)
Viewpoint: The Clever Sheep (blog)
Viewpoint: Jane Mitchinson (blog)
Viewpoint: People for Education
People for Education’s Online Community
~ Mark
You never know when an interesting social media conversation will break out.
Last Sunday, our woodwind quintet, the Venturi Winds, performed a concert at the Wellington County Museum & Archives building. Following the program we decided to go out for a light dinner along with a few family members who attended the event.
Seated at the table and previewing menus, the unsuspecting conversation started. One person, who operates their own business, begins to tell the story of needing to terminate an employee for continually spending company time on their personal cell phone. They turn to me and ask “What you you do in the schools? Do you allow cell phones in the classroom?”
I provide some background on our digital citizenship program indicating that it is important to:
Many of our schools have designated some ‘cell phone safe’ zones where students may use their phones. Classroom use is generally at the discretion of the teacher. Everyone could see the value in our approach, and that providing some real world context to these experiences was of value.
The conversation deepens. “What about laptops? What about Facebook? (etc.)? Are these allowed in the classroom? These are distractions.”
I provide some additional information about our program and approach. True enough, these could be distractions, but mobile technology and social media tools provide:
I went on to explain the use of blogs, wikis, ning, Google docs, Facebook etc. and how the use of these tools can support important curriculum goals such as non fiction writing (e.g. journals, poetry, peer review of projects …). The conversation went on to talk about the role of the teacher shifting from the ‘sage on the stage’ to the learning coach who facilitates inquiry and project based learning.
All in all, a great conversation that stretched out over most of the meal time. The conversation did eventually drift to other topics. Finally a question came up about time zones and daylight savings time.
My solution: “If you had a smart phone, you could look that up right now.” – and I did. What a great segue to the power of access to information via mobile devices. Our time together concluded with a good laugh from the group.
~ Mark
One of the highlights of this week was my visit to @ecmackenzie ‘s classroom. Students in Ms. MacKenzie’s class has been working on producing book trailer videos over the last few weeks. The new twist in this year’s project is that students are sharing their video via a Facebook group. With the group structure, students can enjoy and peer comment and receive teacher feedback.
The Facebook group was created by Ms. MacKenzie. She sent a group invite to herself to establish the first member of the group. Once this was done, students were invited to search for the group and request access. Using this methodology, suitable professional boundaries are maintained with regard to the teacher/student online environment.
As an honourary member of their Facebook group, I have enjoyed watching the videos as the students completed their projects and posted their work. I was impressed by a number of aspects of this project.
I really enjoyed meeting the students face to face after watching their work. Following the video viewing session, I talked to the students about some of our key ITS initiatives to support learning – our dual boot Macintosh environment, wireless hotspots with bring your own device options, and social media and collaboration tools available.
I appreciated the student feedback regarding our progress on these initiatives. Their comments included:
The students also raised the issue to electronic textbooks. Clearly, they see a shift to e-books as a good thing. Key discussion ideas identified were:
Summary: an excellent teacher + motivated and respectful class + innovative project = first rate educational experience
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in your project and visit your classroom.
~ Mark
~ Mark's Musings ~ blog.markwcarbone.ca 
