District Administration - July/August 2011 - (Page 28)

Social Media The dilemma Schools, which make extensive use of interactive whiteboards and multiple educational Web sites, have yet to catch the social media wave for classroom use, says David Cawthorne, the district’s technology director. “Is Facebook a good tool? Absolutely. Is it a good way to engage kids? Absolutely,” Cawthorne says. “But from a district perspective, there are just too many gray areas to deploy it, and too many uncertainties. My main objective is kids being safe. If you can just throw something out there, how do you dependably monitor what others are putting up?” During the past school year, the Weymouth district—citing concerns about inappropriate contact—also imposed the increasingly common prohibition of teachers “friending” students, that is, establishing an online relationship with them that would have allowed teachers and students to view and post messages on each other’s personal Facebook pages. “We define social media as an Internet-based tool for sharing and discussing information among users,” says Trevor Timmons, director of technology and information services for the Weld Re-4 School District in Windsor, Colo., which until last spring prohibited social networking for educational or administrative purposes. “The district had started using Facebook as a communication tool this past fall, and it felt a bit hypocritical that we were using it for that while prohibiting it elsewhere,” explains Timmons, who notes that teachers can now get approval to use such sites as Facebook as educational tools at the high school and middle school levels. To get that approval, teachers need to explain the educational value of using a social media site and to take appropriate security measures for managing content and protecting private student information. 28 July/August 2011 Cashton Middle School students in the Cashton (Wis.) Public Schools take part in a reading lesson where they listen to questions (via headphones) that their teacher had previously recorded on iTunes, and read those questions on their laptops at the same time. Cashton Public Schools doesn’t use social media like Facebook or Twitter, per se, but uses tools like iTunes that might be considered social media, as the term has been morphing to include Web 2.0 tools. Timmons and others leading their districts into the Web 2.0 era are not thinking about traditional emailing and blogging when they discuss social networking. They’re focused on the connections made possible through tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as collaborative writing and editing tools like Google Docs and Edmodo. A 21st-Century School “Facebook is huge for us,” exclaims Michael Roe, the first-year principal of four-year-old Tahquitz High School, part of the Hemet Unified School District in California’s San links to interesting videos. Those connected to the page as Facebook “friends” can post their own queries or comments. Roe posts pictures, including of a student production based on Greek mythology and the night of the prom last May. At the same time, he ran commentary in real time, prompting one Tahquitz student to respond, “I bet you are the first principal to Facebook a prom. Too cool. Talk about connected.” “Parents could look at the pictures and also know that their kids were safe,” Roe points out. He adds that a separate Facebook page launched last fall for the “The district had started using Facebook as a communication tool this past fall, and it felt a bit hypocritical that we were using it for that while prohibiting it elsewhere.” —Trevor Timmons, director of technology and information services, Weld Re-4 School District, Windsor, Colo. Jacinto Valley. The 38-year-old Roe notes that before he arrived last fall, “we had a very strong policy of no cell phones, no iPhones, no anything.” Unlike his older predecessor at Tahquitz, he has spent his teaching and administrative career amid the digital revolution and is enthusiastic about the latest technological advances. At Tahquitz, Roe communicates daily with more than 5,000 parents, students, teachers and staff members via his own Facebook page, on which he posts everything from announcements, pictures and school’s Parent Teacher Student Association has become an interactive hub for PTSA business. “Within the first month, we had over 200 [parent] members,” he says, which was more than triple the rate of past parental participation. Tahquitz High’s school leaders’ foray into social networking has other outlets. Last fall, a Twitter campaign promising students a free shirt if they attended a school football game and displayed the tweeted game announcement on their cell phones or iPods helped fill the Tahquitz side District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July/August 2011

District Administration - July/August 2011
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Facilities News
Inside the Law
District Profile
Administrator Profile
The Social Media Dilemma
Is Year-Round Schooling on Track?
After 50 Years, Ethnic Studies Still Controversial
Finding the Right Purchasing Solution
Look, Listen, Learn
Research Center
Supervisor’s Opinion
Going Mobile
Superintendent’s Insight
Books
Product Focus
New Products
Online Edge

District Administration - July/August 2011

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