Group items tagged

First, who will be regulated by the policy—i.e., will certain job titles or departments be excluded altogether or subject to less restrictions?

Second, what will be regulated—will all online activity be subject to the policy or only when the employee somehow associates himself with your organization (for example, by using his company e-mail account in his Twitter profile).

Third, why are you writing a policy in the first place? Is it to encourage employees to get out there and embrace social media, hopefully with some resulting benefits returning to the employer? Or are you trying to regulate online use of social-networking sites because productivity has become an issue? There are infinite variations of those two choices and your organization needs to settle on one before you start hashing out actual policy provisions.

Every student needs one-on-one access to computers and other mobile technology in classrooms.Every teacher needs professional development in the effective use of digital tools for teaching and learning, including the use of digital tools to promote writing.All schools and districts need a comprehensive information technology policy to ensure that the necessary infrastructure, technical support and resources are available for teaching and learning.

Develop guidelines for use and share with your staff. Update your acceptable-use policy as well as personnel policies to reflect the district’s position on appropriate use of social networking sites. For ideas, check out the Social Media Guidelines for Schools wiki (http://socialmediaguidelines.pbworks.com). Many of the ideas presented here are adapted from this resource, which is meant to be shared and expanded as new information becomes available.

reate an official site for your school or district. To protect others’ privacy, set it up as a fan page so people can post comments or become a fan without giving you access to their personal pages. Commit staff time or resources to daily updates. Keep the tone conversational, but represent your organization and your position respectfully and responsibly. According to Pew Research, “44 percent of online adults have searched for information about someone whose services or advice they seek in a professional capacity.”

The campaigns are collected in a website and can be viewed here. 

We were pretty sure that the G² students would mostly comply with the new policy because they had invested so much time and effort (note: ownership) but we were uncertain just how effective the Responsible Use Campaign would be for everyone else.

groups researching the potentially negative consequences of cell phone use in schools, we came to realize that we needed a way to address these proactively if the proposal we were planning to make to administration had any chance of approval.

Their new policy said school employees are not allowed to knowingly "friend" a student on Facebook or connect on any social networking site. School board members said they hope this helps eliminate acts of cyber-bullying, violent threats, and internet sexual predators.

Mecklenburg County does not have a section for social media, but all personnel must follow the policy guide for the code of ethics or action will be taken.

the focus from a policy perspective should ultimately be on student outcomes, not the inputs to get there. Focusing on inputs has the effect of locking a system into a set way of doing things and inhibiting innovation; focusing on outcomes, on the other hand, encourages continuous improvement against a set of overall goals and can unlock a path toward the c

reation of a high-quality student-centric system.

A question to ask perhaps is if this is the right way to seek those outcomes? Can we require that students develop these skills but leave open the possibility that there may be other ways to acquire these? I’m on the fence.

Researching What for Why? I enjoy research. I spend much of my time reading it. I also often find myself in sustained and vigorous conversations with colleagues from some of the leading research institutions from around the world...and it's time that I value very much. Indeed, the Foundation maintains a register of some of the leading research around 1-to-1 on our site....however, I am also sick and tried of the unrelenting practice of political leaders and educational policy makers who continually seek to justify inaction and limit the scope for innovation in the name of research. One only has to review the mountains of literature around the most effective ways to teach reading and the efficacy of small classes to conclude that too much educational research is based on loose assumptions, inappropriate methodologies, a blatant lack of rigor and ideological bias. Too often the funding base for educational research creates preconceptions about the outcomes, real or perceived, and the volume of research that swamps the education market seems to be more related to tenure or the attraction for doctoral topics, than a genuine need. It really is about time we took stock of the situation. For more than three decades we have seen an increasing stream of research that has targeted our use of technology in schools. What purpose has much of it served, other than to often significantly distract educators from continuing to develop innovative practice, and seek new ways to enga

How can we support innovative teachers taking risks, if every move is covered by a researcher measuring outcomes?

Why don't we start by working on the culture of our schools, and encourage those that are seeking to create a culture of innovation. Why don't we start thinking carefully about what it really means to support risk-taking in our schools; it seems the only risks people are interested in are about the evils of the net and beyond...how about we support our educational leaders who are creating new agendas for learning within their schools and seeking to genuinely leverage technology within an immersive environment to truly create worthwhile, authentic learning opportunities.