HohmanProvement

The following is a conversation about social networking at our school.  If you have more to say please comment below (Instead of bogging up our email server.)

(faculty Member) has been in contact with staffmembers of both the State and National levels of our union (IFT/AFT) and several attorneys regrading appropriate uses of modern technology. There are concerns that important to all of us in IFT local 1925.

All employees in education settings run a grave risk with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, My Space, etc. There have been several cases from around the nation wherein emplyess have been disciplined and even terminated for merely posting photos (photos that in the mind of the Employer are inappropriate) on their Facebook sites, not to mention communicating with students via these sites.

This really is a pretty serious issue, and I’m sure that many of us think our civil liberties may protect us, but the courts have ruled that emplyers do have authority to police what employees say, even on their own time.

As the resident geek  I just want to put in my two cents on social networks:

Twitter and Facebook are very different beasts.  Twitter is public and can be searched so anything you post is accessible by anyone.  With Facebook you can (mostly) control who see’s your posts.

The privacy settings on Facebook could potentially be set so that administrators/students have a different access to your material then others.  However, this is not a simple thing to do.  Personally I don’t “friend” any students simply because I think of Facebook as a “bar” and I wouldn’t want to see any students there. 

What I think is important to keep in mind is that we are trying to get our students ready for the real world out there and Facebook is a big part of it.  We need to model responsible use for them, and be able to inform them of good decisions that they can make using social networks.

I’m concerned with the safety of teachers.I’m also concerned with the job security of teachers.Be very careful with social networks.Do not engage in any of those activities using a Unit 4 computer.Be very selective if you use any form of social networks.  Unit 4 attorneys have made the position of the school district very clear.Teachers will not receive protection in issues involving Facebook involvement or similiar activities.Teacher discipline,including job termination may be an outcome.We may be trying to get our students ready for ”the real world out there” but Facebook is not part of any area of Unit 4 curriculum.   Take this issue seriously.CFT has already been involved in several situations involving teacher safety regarding social networks.Please be careful.

I completely agree that we need to be extremely careful with our online social activities.  I will continue spreading that warning to colleagues.  I have seen and heard of the terrible things that can happen to employees as a result of carelessness.  As public educators we are more closely scrutinized so we must be very careful.

However, we also have a responsibility to teach our students “digital citizenship.”  This is outlined in the National Education Technology Standards (http://tiny.cc/NETS335) which the ISBE adopted.  In standard 4 (Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility) part c says: “promote and model digital etiquitte and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.” 

I don’t mean to jam this down everyone’s throat but it seems to be an issue that can’t just be avoided. 

The National Education Technology Standards offer no protection for any teacher accused of improper online activities.The standards provide no security for those teachers who are threatened or abused by individuals through online activites.Teachers in many districts,including Unit 4, have been victimized by criminal activity and false accusations as a result of online activites.Teachers in many districts,including our own,have been terminated because of activities involving computer use,text messages,and photographs.

I suggest that you do not interact with students through Facebook,text messages or similiar activities.

New year, new host, new look,… I am hoping this will be the site I stick with for a while.  I have stuff all over the place: slideshare, vimeo, delicious, classmarker, visualcv, google docs, and I want there to be one way to access them as a student, parent, educator, or other.  Other being potential colleagues or employers.

Need to share some files?  Piece of cake:

http://www.4shared.com

This site allows you to create an account in the amount of time it takes to type in your email address.  You instantly have 5 Gb of online storage. 

The best part about this is that they give you the URL to hand out to others if you want to share your files.

Think the URL is to long?  Visit tinyurl.com and shorten it up.

Grad school is over for the semester. I am in need of a project. I think that is how my mind works. I need projects. This latest one is a website called:

How-to-jump-high.com

I used to have serious hops. I played volleyball in college and could dunk fairly easily. Now I’m creating a website devoted to jumping higher.  It’s a fun project.  I wonder how many sites I might end up making.

I have to admit it took a while for me to appreciate appreciative inquiry. If the semester had ended halfway through I think I would have though that this was a weird course. After designing an evaluation using AI and thinking about the results and thinking about what can be done with the results I am now a big fan of AI.

I enjoyed the way this course continually built up our project and gave us so many ways to reflect on things. Luke was a great help in week 8 when we talked about the interview questions. The whole class was helpful with comments all semester. Even just being able to read through a bunch of papers helps see different angles taken on the various readings and assignments and that was a big help for me. I look forward to continuing my education through moodles and online courses.

Thanks everyone for a great semester!

I’m writing some math cartoons and checking out how they look in wordpress.

Before they start charging money go to xtranormal and make some movies!  All you need to do is type in the script, add some gestures, facial expressions, background noises, and plenty of other fun stuff.

I think I am going to have my algebra class create a bunch of quick movies that explain various vocabulary words that we are working with.  A talking dictionary.

The problem I’m running into is that I can’t embed the movie in google sites.  I guess I’ll have to make a wikispace and see if that works.  OK!  It works in wikispaces if you put it a widget, select video, select “other” video at the bottom then you can put in the embedding code that xtranormal gives you.

It looks like I can’t embed it here either.

I am trying to figure out what this job really is.  I’ve asked around and found out that the job title, description, and tasks vary greatly from school to school. Here are the titles I’ve heard:

• Instructional Technology Specialist
• Ed Tech Specialist
• TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment)
• Technology Coach
• Technology Liaison

The job descriptions have included:

• Run computer lab
• develop/maintain school website
• assist teachers in using technology (ppt, web 2.0, student response systems, smartboards, etc.)
• lead training on various pieces of technology
• minor troubleshooting

The actual person is sometimes someone who works for the whole district and goes from school to school, sometimes a dedicated person at the school, sometimes a teacher who is relieved of a class, and sometimes just a full time teacher who helps out.

Our district is thinking about adding this position at the high school.  What is the ideal situation for this position?  What should they be responsible for?  Who should it be?

Here is something that every techie type needs to know when they are about to have kids.  Get an Ipod Touch. (A PSPworks also but the IPod is way cooler.) 

Here is why:  There are going to be many times in your life when you need to be sitting in the room just to be sitting in the room.  For example, watching Dora, watching Little Mermaid, staying in the room to make sure no monsters come in while they are getting to sleep. 

This is an enormous amount of time when you could be on-line but a laptop is a little too intrusive for the father-daughter time you are having.  I am subscribed to about 25 blogs and I get through all of them while taking my kids to bed or watching Charlie and Lola (you’ll know what that is soon – it’s a good one – you might end up watching that instead.)

It’s all about technology making our lives more efficient, connected, and stress free.  How wonderful.

This week I got worried about posting my annotated bibliography.  I was talking to Emily about it and we wondered if everyone would put the same resources since we are all looking for the same information.  I thought I better post mine early so it didn’t just look like I waited for Pam to post and then copy hers. 

As it turns out everyone came up with a wide variety of sources and now we all have this wonderful compilation of research opportunities for our paper.  I really dig this moodle thing.

I enjoyed Kate’s “Appreciative Inquiry: Using Personal Narratives for Initiating School Reform.”  We have a similar questionnaire for the students here and I wonder how we are using the information.  Michael’s article he found about social capital made me think about the way Steven Covey uses it in his 7 habits book.  I can’t say it’s the best way to look at it since it implies that it’s some thing you would use later.  I would rather think of it as something you would always build.   Of course Pam kept us all honest with her thorough and well though out reviews of her articles.  I wish I could see what her keyboard looks like.  I’m sure the “E” is completely rubbed off. 

I feel like I got a litter better picture of appreciative inquiry or at least a better idea of how it can or can not be implemented in the real world.