Reflection on MSD social media policy, Justine's story and my understanding of social media

I read MSD's Instruction 148 Web Tools and Social Media Policy.  I believe the policy is well written and clearly defines how MSD will provide for safe collaboration and publication of student online work.  While I'm not positive everyone in the district has read this policy as thoroughly as I have for this assignment, I now have a better understanding of my legal and ethical responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for my students.  The policy clearly states that "The District staff has the responsibility to present a monitored, supervised environment providing graduated freedoms from younger to older students based on student maturity."  I interpret this statement as everyone has a role to play in making sure our students are using the internet properly but as far as Netiquette and Digital Citizenship, I'm only aware of those topics being in the ICT curriculum.  It certainly wouldn't hurt if any teacher expecting students to use technology for their class include a brief lesson on appropriate use.

In reading Justine's story, I wasn't surprised to read about the consequences she or others faced when they posted something before they thought about how others might react to it.  I believe most people have heard about similar horror stories.  I thought about how I could help my students avoid making the same mistake by having them read an article such as this one and reflect on it either as a class or as an individual assignment.  Students need to be taught over and over how they should think long and hard about what they are about to post BEFORE they hit that Send button.  Unfortunately, it appears our digital native students have a hard time NOT posting everything they're doing, seeing, feeling, thinking, etc.  In my opinion, that is the biggest difference with digital immigrants such as myself...I don't feel the need to share so much with the internet world.  While I do believe social media has a lot of benefits, this story definitely highlighted a huge misuse of social media.

As more teachers are learning about the educational use of technology, I believe it's important to share and collaborate with colleagues so we are practicing what we expect from our students.  I am aware that some teachers avoid technology all together because of a fear of personal liability.  Teachers that had a Facebook account and friended students were advised against this a few years ago.  Today, social media is being used successfully by many teachers who blog with their students and encourage them to collaborate on assignments.  This is a great example of extending the classroom.  Google Apps for Education (GAFE) is also becoming more popular with teachers and our students are definitely benefitting.  This offers students a great way to submit assignments from wherever they are and receive them as well from their teachers. Ownership is in the hands of our students to create and manage their work.  I'm aware of a lot of sharing between teachers and students with assignments and students collaborating on projects in many classes.  Our administrators are strongly encouraging the use of technology and that is a welcome change from our prior admin. team.  I find it very beneficial to communicate with parents via email instead of playing telephone tag for days and sometimes weeks.