eSchool News

Social media has had a major impact on education in recent years -- perhaps a bigger impact than many realize. During a McGraw-Hill Education webinar, #EdChat founders Steven Anderson and Tom Whitby offered tips and best practices focused on how to use social media in education and how to craft an impactful social media strategy.

1. Don’t be afraid to jump in. “Not everybody is going to feel comfortable about learning this technology, and learning what they need to know, but that’s part of being a lifelong learner,” Whitby said. “We need to change the priorities of professional development.”
2. Be committed. “In order to maintain relevance in education you have to keep up with what’s going on, and to do that you really have to be connected,” Whitby said.
3. Get past the stereotypes. “It’s an opportunity for people to meet and socialize,” Anderson said. In fact, if more schools embraced social media, safety issues such as cyberbullying would not be nearly as prevalent as they are today.
4. Train teachers for today’s classrooms. “We have to educate our educators better if we want our kids to be educated,” Whitby said. “Digital literacy has to be understood by educators.”
5. Don’t start students at a disadvantage. “You do kids a disservice if you shut out the world,” Anderson said. “They’re not going to have a choice about whether to use technology -- those are tools their employers will expect them to be knowledgeable about when they get out into the world,” Whitby added.
6. Give up control. “Policy isn’t needed,” Anderson said. “You don’t need to have a physical social media policy. Policies are only meant to control, and you don’t really want to control something like this. You want to let things happen organically.”
7. Model the behavior. “Administrators who want to encourage teachers to use social media should use social media themselves,” Anderson said.
8. Find value in educators who turn to social media. “When a teacher says they found a resource on Facebook, or Twitter, or on a blog, it tells me they’ve taken their professional learning in their own hands,” Anderson said.
9. Lurk, learn, and then interact. “Lurking is powerful,” Anderson said. “I encourage people to use hash tags, look at lists, and find one they can follow.” Once users lurk on their preferred social media network, they’ll become familiar with the content and discussions and will feel more comfortable participating in conversations.

[March 11]

In high schools today, snide comments, inside jokes and offensive language can explode online through new, quickly evolving outlets, where it can live on and be seen by thousands. The aftermath can ruin reputations, jeopardize jobs, ­disrupt classrooms and lead to lawsuits or criminal charges.

The result is a frustrating game of cat-and-mouse for ­parents, who fear that teens might make a very public, and long-lasting mistake. Schools, meanwhile, need to maintain a positive environment, while trying to teach impulsive teens how to safely use technologies that can spiral out of their control.

Education technology can enable achievement for students with a variety of learning styles. But it also creates a problem: For students who don’t have access to these forms of technology-enabled learning -- bring-your-own-device, for instance -- the digital divide grows.

Now, as many states across the country begin to support multiple online and blended learning programs, states that still don’t support these learning styles are creating an alarming disadvantage for their students. “Keeping Pace with K-12 Online & Blended Learning,” a massive data report compiled by the Evergreen Education Group, a private consulting and advisory firm specializing in education and education technology, provides a snapshot of the K-12 online and blended learning landscape across 50 states as of late 2013, and makes many forward-looking statements on the future of online and blended learning. One of those statements describes the new digital divide.

“For students, there is a substantial difference between going to school in a state committed to quality online and blended learning opportunities, and a state without,” emphasizes the report. “This difference is large and growing, and threatens to open a new educational digital divide: one separating students who have access to 21st century learning opportunities, and those who do not.”