Social media can be used on a professional level if you keep it strictly professional and don’t allow your personal business to intertwine. It seems that a lot of good collaboration can take place in the comfort of your own home. As a primary teacher, I see social media more as a tool for the teacher, not the student. I think it would be neat to reach out to authors and allow the students to communicate with people that they would never have met in person, but posting about assignments on Twitter or Facebook don’t seem to be the best for third graders. I have been using Remind to communicate with parents and Classroom to communicate with students. Remind is now linked to classroom, so as I get more comfortable with Classroom and I can share assignments with parents through remind. This seems to be the best way to provide a smaller version of social media that is safe for all students to use.
If I came across something inappropriate that a student wrote, I would not address the post directly. I would take a picture of the post and contact their parent/s and my administrators. Depending on the post, I might be able to address the problem in a general way to the class by teaching a lesson about digital footprints and/or digital citizenship. It would be a good reminder to all students that what they say and do is out there for everyone to see. At the time is might seem cool, but later on there could be consequences.
3 Comments
Scott Marsden
3/4/2018 03:09:54 pm
Thanks for reminding us, Stephanie, that we have to document inappropriate social media posts because they often can be deleted. I agree that social media in education should be tilted more toward the teacher's own professional development, although in limited and controlled cases it can be used with students.
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helen
3/4/2018 05:47:21 pm
I also like the professional use of social media. And I believe that Remind is a great avenue to stay in contact with parents, I am hoping to explore this more
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Jane Gallagher
3/5/2018 09:04:33 pm
I like the idea of using Remind with your parents. Could you use Remind as a place to post a class newsletter? I agree with using an inappropriate post as an opportunity to teach a whole class lesson on digital citiizenship and digital footprints. This is a way to create a positive out of the post. Teaching in elementary as well I do not see social media as a tool to be used by students. I had thought about using Twitter to contact authors but how would that work? I too had a difficult time with the chat and know that I was doing something wrong. I just don't know what it was.
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