Teaching students to contribute and collaborate online in ways that are both safe and appropriate requires instruction and modeling, not simply crossing our fingers and hoping for the best when they go home and do it on their own.
"Now more than ever, students need teachers who can help them sort through choices, apply technology well, and tell their stories clearly and with humanity."
Among our authors' guidelines for promoting the skills crucial to using social media well:
Value reading and writing more than ever;
Blend digital, art, oral, and written literacies; and
Teach students to search, evaluate, summarize, interpret, and think and write clearly.
As a result, the way we communicate, read, write, listen, persuade, learn from others, and accomplish community actions is changing. Or, as someone said when we were planning this issue of
Educational Leadership, "Literacy—it's not just learning to read a book anymore."
Pictory is a showcase for people around the world to document their lives and cultures. Anyone can submit one large, captioned image to each of Pictory's editorial themes. I'm editor, designer, and founder Laura Brunow Miner, and I will select a few dozen of the best items from each theme to appear in each showcase.