Teaching the Teachers About Online Ethics

Week 29 and the fifth post for Applied Practice in Context:

cc public domain attribution

Everyone has a right to privacy, right? Even teachers. So what I put on Facebook is my business. Wrong.

I hear more about Facebook abuse than any other social networking tool, and as my community of practice is an intermediate, our method of controlling its use - or rather, abuse - is by blocking it.  Yes, I know  - education is better than control, and hopefully we will get there.  But right now, it’s easier to stop our students accessing it at school, especially as half of them are underage according to Facebook guidelines.

The issue is partly that adults don’t get it either.  Some parents are blissfully unaware that Samantha is posting posed shots of herself with pouty lips; or that she has collected friends like Weetbix cards, people she less than barely knows who can read about her every move. They come to us when Samantha receives insulting putdowns from Jessica and Alana.  You see, it’s easy to be a big brave bully online, not having to look your victim in the eye and waiting for adulation from other kids in the peer group. (NB I realise that the person is bullying, not the tool, so we work on that too, with programmes like PB4L and Kia Kaha.)

We counsel parents and their children about security settings and making sure that the former are aware of their offspring’s online life.  I hold regular assemblies where I gather student photos from nonsecure accounts and display them across the screen (nothing risque of course).  I let the student body know about the ease of access, lack of control and right that I have to view their images, just as any stranger might.  It’s a strong message with desired results, based on a Learning@School conference keynote, from Australian cyber cop, Brent Lee.

Remember I said that adults don’t get it either? Well, teachers are adult.  They forget how networked we are.  I suggest that they don’t need to be friends with me as deputy principal, but we have mutual friends so a comment on a photo could turn up on my feed.  And they sometimes forget that some of their “friends” are parents or people who have friends who are parents. A comment can be misconstrued or turn into gossip very quickly.

With this in mind, the Board of Trustees decided to put together a social media policy, gathering documentation from Netsafe, from the Code of Ethics and from the Teachers and Social Media site.  We held a staff meeting on social media and the staff looked at the Code of Ethics and the draft social media policy more closely.  There was a lot of learning.  Many of them had no idea that they could not ethically post photos of their students working without specific permission or that there were dangers in publishing named student images.

We now have our Mokoia Matrix which is our digital citizenship and cybersafety hub, for all members of our community.  All teachers need to teach digital literacy.  That way they learn too.

References

Education Council. (nd). Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Learnings and Future Learnings...from the #edchatnz conference

This is my fourth blog post about the #edchatnz conference; from what I've seen on the Tweetdeck streams, I'm not alone in my excitement.

In @ReidHPS's meme challenge, he asks us what we would have liked to attend.  We had to make choices and those choices involved missing people and sessions which have had an obvious impact on others.  So here are links to resources, presentations and #storified tweets which gather in the goodness.

I plan to come back here to read and reflect as there is not a hope that I can do it all right now.
Thanks #edchatnz tweeps who did all the work for this collection.  Special thanks to @chasingalyx who gathered all the links in her "Superpost of Resources."

Alex's Superpost of Resources

Sonya's Listly of Reflections 

Anne Kenneally's #storify

Kimberley's #storify

Pam's #storify on SOLO

Anne Robertson's #storify

Simone's #storify on #kidsedchatnz

Karen's keynote on #storify

Alyx's #storify on the MP debate

Karen's #storify on Connected Educator Month

My #storify on Gamification

My #storify on Digital Literacy with @andrewcowie

My #storify on the inaugural f2f meeting of #Edubookchatnz


Lots of photos on the #Edchatnz community

It's All About Connecting - #connectedrotorua

We want these meetings to meet needs and wants. Twitter was suggested at the last meeting, so Twitter it was! (And I don't need to be asked twice.)

I think it's the MOST important arena for teachers to build their personal learning networks.  I've said it before - here's my post on being Attwicted to Learning.

It's harder to convince teachers of this however.  in spite of this, a dozen keen folk came out to find out why this is so.

Knowing Alex Le Long had presented on Twitter at the NZATE conference in the holidays, I thought we would spread the love and get her to share her presentation.  Thanks Alex! it was very informal, with questions and clarifications as we went along.  Two new tweeps joined up and others enthused that they would start using it more.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q5oTIOrh8v5MOm4mNW6quFi9GDmvm2wyiWiKzW20D34/edit#slide=id.p

We moved on to the topic of Blogging. as the discussion went that way, I talked about protocols and security:

• Don't forget that your school owns intellectual property completed in its name - so by inference - even student blogs.
• That means you need some identification and some pastoral control.
• Use the school name in some form in the URL so that they are easily found. we use "mokoia-int"
• Blogger settings allow you as teacher or administrator to both be an author and moderate either posts or comments or both. Suggest you get in there!
• Use first names, not surnames in titles and URLs and never identify a student with an individual portrait photo.
• Decide on the purpose of the blog.  Will it be to publish beautiful teacher-edited work, or is it rather evidence of learning? The latter is more real and helps with parent understanding about where their learner is at. Say this in the blog description which appears under the title.
• Use the word verification; there are unfortunately, too many spammers out there!
• Advertise! Use twitter to tell the world about the blog post. Get your network to RT (retweet). Your young blogger will need readers and commenters!

Marnel talked about her Kidblogs.  She teaches new entrants and Year 1.  Even young students can post with a teacher's help.  And parents love being able to share their child's learning at home.

Her children participate in Kidsedchatnz too, for which she is one of seven teacher facilitators. Make sure your children have real places to read and write, with real just in time audiences! 

Thanks everyone for another great evening of learning and sharing.  Next time - Friday 5 September, we'll discuss eportfolios, so bring your ideas, your questions - and a friend!

Connected Rotorua Twitter Handles:

@mrs_hyde    @1MvdS    @ariaporo22   @lynmartin  @suewintersnz  @NeedhamVicki  @nobiek59   @JakBBB