Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

Does your school have a social media policy? In an age where teachers can lose their jobs based on a blog post, creating a policy governing online expression is a good idea. Being proactive in setting a social media policy sets clear expectations, making it less likely that you or someone you work with will write something embarrassing or inflammatory online. More to the point, if you wait until after someone does something stupid, you probably won’t like the reactionary, heavily lawyered policy you end up with.

So how do you set up a social media policy that sets out clear guidelines and consequences, but at the same time doesn’t stifle teachers from blogging or Tweeting? A little digging online can turn up some useful sample policies for you to start with. Corey Creed at Social Fresh has drafted a social media policy template you should look at when crafting your policy. While it’s geared more toward businesses than schools, most of their guidelines will work for just about any organization. Best of all, it’s rooted in common sense (“Be aware that your actions captured via images, videos, posts, or comments can reflect that of the company,” for example), rather than Draconian, CYA legalese designed to discourage teachers from using social media.

Creed advises, however, that his sample guide is only a template, and you’ll want to tailor it for your school (and possibly involve your school’s lawyers) to make sure it works for your situation. Once you have a workable social media policy in place, you can blog a little easier without worrying whether a seemingly innocuous post will get you in trouble.

A Template To Help Start Your Social Media Policy

Related stuff

Three guidelines for safe social networking

Instructifeature: Social Networking in Schools

Instructifeature: An Educator’s Field Guide for Facebook

Photo credit: escapedtowisconsin on Flickr.

BY KEVIN HODGSON

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that media are focusing on education and teachers these days. Time Magazine runs a cover story and accompanying pieces about the upcoming “Waiting for Superman” documentary. Newsweek publishes some inside features on President Obama’s push for reform with Race to the Top. And now NBC television has launched a website initiative with news anchor Brian Williams that is called Education Nation, which touts itself as a place “to engage the public, through thoughtful dialogue, in pursuit of the shared goal of providing every American with an opportunity to pursue the best education in the world.”

NBC is hosting a series of live summits on the topic of education in the coming weeks, including a September 26 teacher online summit that features educators from around the country. This forum will precede a two-day educational event being held in New York City on September 27 and 28 during which, according to the site, “workforce readiness, developing great teachers, technology and innovation, parental involvement, early education, higher education, and the politics of education” will be explored. The television network will use its various resources and outlets (online home, MSNBC, NBC Nightly News, etc.) to broadcast components of this initiative.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Happy Monday, dear readers. To ease you back into the work week, I thought we’d begin with a fun ice breaker. (Well, I think it’s fun. Your actual fun may vary.)

Consider the tattoo in the picture. Someone, quite possibly a mad scientist, has gotten the entire periodic table tattooed on his arm. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s a real tattoo.

Now say you’re a science teacher about to give a test on the elements. Do you make this student cover up the tattoo? Why or why not?

Photo credit: o2b on Flickr.

BY BILL FERRIS

In this week’s by-the-numbers edition, read about the things you need to know before going 1:1, find the best free web-design tutorials, and read the heartwarming story about how the 112th element finally became a real boy got a name. More after the jump.

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You can have a say in America’s science achievement standards. ACT seeks nominations for the National Assessment of Educational Progress for fourth-, eighth- and 12th-grade science. Naturally, they want some Cracker-Jack science teachers to help out, as well as science professionals and university faculty.

The standards-setting process encompasses two studies taking place October 7-11, 2009, and January 27-31, 2010, both in San Antonio. If you’re selected as a panelist, ACT will cover all airfare and lodging expenses, plus give you a per diem. In addition, ACT will reimburse your school for your substitute teacher. If a free trip and the opportunity to influence national standards haven’t convinced you this is a good idea by now, I don’t know what else to tell you. -BILL FERRIS

Setting Standards for the 2009 NAEP in Science

It’s time once again for me to harrangue you about Instructify’s comments policy. We moderate all comments, so if your brilliant reply to one of our posts doesn’t show up right away, we’re not ignoring you. We’ll approve comments as fast as we can (FYI, that usually occurs more quickly during business hours). However, once we’ve accepted your comment, you’ll be automagically approved for all future comments.

Now that you know the score, send us a comment and let us know what we’re doing right, or what we’re screwing up. Or just say hi, that’s fine, too. -BILL FERRIS

Unless you were living under a rock (like Mr. Snail over there), you’ve probably heard about the recent federal stimulus package. You’ve probably also heard that some of that money will be for schools and education. Now that the legislation has passed, and been signed by President Obama, you may wonder, oh reader, what does this mean for me?

This handy dandy link (provided to the writer by Larry Ferlazzo), breaks down the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) estimates of how much money will go to each school district. Hint, the money is only for Title 1 and IDEA (Special Education). Happy spending! -ALICE MERCER

Photo credit: jciv on Flickr.

Since I got an Android phone for Christmas, I’ve been yammering to anyone who will listen about how cell phones are the great technology equalizer — you can use phones to surf the internet, send email, create podcasts, share photos, as well as, you know, talk to people. Even high-end phones are much less expensive than a decent laptop, and they can fit in your pocket.

Folks in the cell phone industry feel the same way, and that’s why they’d like to see more cell phone use in schools. Matt Richtel of the New York Times deals with the issues of using phones in class in his article, Industry Makes Pitch That Smartphones Belong in Classroom.

Many educators regard students’ cell phones as mobile alert systems that let the teacher know that a student would like some detention, please. Phones also present problems ranging from cheating to increasing potential distractions in class. However, it’s hard to dispute the capabilities and cost-effectiveness of smart phones, even if the people crowing about them the loudest are doing so out of naked self-interest. The article notes that a few schools have decided to try programs in which students are issued phones for educational purposes, with positive results:

“Suzette Kliewer, the teacher who administered the Digital Millennial program at Southwest High School in Jacksonville, N.C., said the phones excited her students and made them collaborate and focus on their studies, even outside of school hours. ‘They took average-level kids and made them into honors-level kids,’ she said.

“But Ms. Kliewer also said that she spent much of her own time at night, and during weekends and holidays, monitoring the students’ phone use and occasionally disconnecting phones remotely when students broke the rules.”

Another drawback, addressed by education and technology analyst Bill Rust, is that while smart phones can do a lot, the large screens and keyboards found on computers offer an advantage that phones simply can’t overcome. If you’ve ever written a lengthy email on your phone, even if it has a keypad, you know what he means.

As the benefits of smart phones become more…well, beneficial, will schools loosen their rules on phone usage in class? What’s your school’s cell phone policy? Are you doing anything with phones in class? If that’s not allowed, are you doing anything to try to change the policy? Tell us about it in the comments. -BILL FERRIS

Industry Makes Pitch That Smartphones Belong in Classroom via the New York Times

Related stuff:

The new essentials: Top 10 school supplies for today’s students

How to use your cell phone for education: Pictures and video

How to use your cell phone for education: Mobile podcasting

If you’re new to the site and are wondering why your snappy, insightful comment didn’t show up after you submitted it, don’t worry, we didn’t delete it. Instructify moderates comments for all first-time posters. This is an educational site, after all. Nothing will trigger your school’s firewall faster than a bunch of spam slipping through. We’ll try to approve comments quickly, though it’ll probably happen faster during business hours. Just don’t panic if you submit your comment and don’t see it appear right away.

The good news: once you’ve been approved, we’ll remember your email address and allow future comments without moderation.

So drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you.

Education Week is holding their Back-to-School Open House. From September 1-7, you can access all the site’s premium content. In their own words, “enjoy full FREE access to absolutely everything!”

Education Week has lots of info on important K-12 issues. Now’s your chance to read up on what’s going on in educational policy without spending a dime. -BILL FERRIS

Education Week

Being educators, we are often conservative, especially when it involves the law, as copyright does. This has led to a growing concern about missed learning opportunities due to caution because teachers are avoiding doing anything with copyrighted materials, or not allowing their students to produce content using copyrighted material.

American and Temple Universities have been working on this and have a report coming out about the cost of copyright confusion in education. I recently attended a session at NECC given by Kristen Hokanson on this topic. This discussion brought up a concept that is really central to educational use of copyrighted material, and that is transformation. A big part of what makes it fair use is that you’re not just “copying” the work of others, but remaking it into something of your own. One of the best examples is the Fair(y) Use Tale video produced by Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. This video takes snippets from Disney cartoons to teach about fair use. Because it’s both education AND satire, it’s covered by fair use.

I was first introduced to this concept when I did a case-study discussion (a favorite way for lawyers to discuss and educate about legal points) about a potential fair use I had in a classroom project. Transformation is not often discussed, but it’s an important concept for fair use.  Get to know more about it. -ALICE MERCER

Transformative use resources

Stanford University guide to Fair Use in Education check out the section on the “transformative factor”

Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society Fair(y) Use Tale

It’s Elementary: Copyright–It’s the Law

Related Stuff:

Copyright in education, part 1: Fair use

Photo credit: PugnoM on flickr

Here at Instructify, we know that about half of you tune out when you see an article about Wikipedia; the site has become a lightning rod for discussion about everything that’s good about Web 2.0 and everything that’s wrong with it. But as Wikipedia pages come up first in more and more Google searches, its inevitability as a source of student information grows. So, when we discovered Wikipedia user Jbmurray’s essay “Was Introducing Wikipedia to the Classroom an Act of Madness Leading Only to Mayhem if not Murder?“, we knew we had to share. The essay details the process through which a professor at the University of British Columbia integrated Wikipedia in his classroom, revealing both its strengths and its warts to his students, by setting the goal of creating featured articles, which meet Wikipedia’s highest standards.

According to Jbmurray:

The premise of the project was that students had been using wikipedia as a source without properly considering its drawbacks. So it should have come as no surprise then that when seeking sources for the articles they were writing, again all too often they should make the same mistakes. They would add information that was unsourced, poorly referenced (and too frequently even plagiarized), or cited from what were often enough merely other webpages and online encyclopedias.

Yet here lay also one of the great benefits of the assignment. Precisely because of wikipedia’s injunction … that every item in their article had to be referenced, students were forced to reveal their sources. These poor sources came to light in a way that they might well not have were they writing a term paper. Moreover, precisely because writing on wikipedia is a process of continual revision, they could be asked to go back and re-evaluate their sources, find better ones, and try again. Even with plagiarism, there was no longer the need to make a song and dance about it, because at no time were they handing in what purported to be a final product.

As a result of the project, Jbmurray has been made an administrator on Wikipedia, and has contributed a second essay entitled “Advice on Using Wikipedia in Colleges and Universities.” While your K-12 classroom might not yet be ready to create featured articles, you may be able to apply some of the lessons learned about research and sources. You may find that asking students to engage in the Wikipedia community actually discourages them from using Wikipedia as a source in the future. Wouldn’t that make reports and research papers more pleasant? -ROSS WHITE

Wikipedia: “Was Introducing Wikipedia to the Classroom an Act of Madness Leading Only to Mayhem if not Murder?”
Wikipedia: “Advice on Using Wikipedia in Colleges and Universities“

Welcome to the Carnival of Education Career Fair! We’ve retracted the bleachers and set up the booths on the gymnasium floor so these brave teachers can see what they might be doing if they weren’t teaching (perish the thought).

Motivational Speaker
Mr. D at I Want to Teach Forever agreed to sport a freaking mohawk as long as his students worked hard, which was about three weeks. Sadly, his motivational experiment has concluded. Long live the mohawk.

Camp Counselor
As a kid, my wife got to go to Space Camp and Marine Science Camp. Had Tisha Kulak and American Consumer News been around back then to point out how to save money on tuition to summer research camps, I might’ve been able to go, too.

Productivity Consultant
Instructify-favorite studenthacks.org has some great tips for students who want to learn how to write a research paper.

Pro Athletes
The Jose Vilson uses Derek Jeter as an example of how nurturing students’ talent and leadership ability early on can reap great results.

And over at Jay P. Greene’s Blog, the author talks about the importance of identifying students’ talents, whether they’re a left tackle or potential honor student.

Economist
ESL teacher Larry Ferlazzo knows that money is the international language.

Translator
Melissa B. at The Scholastic Scribe provides a handy-dandy English-to-Eduspeak dictionary.

Director
Mathew Needleman at Creating Lifelong Learners takes a proactive approach to managing disruptive students during a class movie project.

Advice Columnist
Let’s Play Math! has some advice on teaching math to a struggling student.

Detective
OverwhelmedMom gets to the bottom of problems that gifted students face.

Investigative Reporters
The proprietor of a voice from the middle knows the means to discovery is asking the right questions.

In addition, eduwonkette responds to a Wall Street Journal article about the criteria used to evaluate teachers.

Game Developer
Alvaro at SharpBrains shares a few games to stimulate your temporal lobe.

Diplomat
Coach Brown tries to reach an understanding with hostile parents.

Nutritionists
At Homework. Dinner. Life. Angela points out that good nutrition habits ought to be maintained year-round, not just a few days before the test.

Meanwhile, Chanman at Buckhorn Road says all that caffeine students drink can’t be good for them.

Cartographer
Dan Callahan, a.k.a. geek.teacher, harnesses Google Maps for a lesson in community mapping.

Librarian
@EDU takes the work out of student research by pointing them toward Google Alerts.

Politician
Jane Artabasy at Golden Apple Teaching Excellence Network unloads the loaded word of the day, “elitism,” showing it’s nothing to be frightened of - especially in schools.

The folks at Golden Apple also mull over the differences in races and learning styles.

Astronaut
HowDoWhy asks, what is a solar system, anyway? Furthermore, just how big is ours?

Human Resources Specialist
Over at Right on the Left Coast, Darren discusses the sticky situation of a teacher dating an 18-year-old student at a different school.

Mentors
Allison Jones at Entry Level Living wants to revamp the way young people think about leadership.

The folks at the Efficient Leadership Files have some ideas on that as well.

Statistician
Lead from the Start crunches the numbers about the disconnect between teachers and EdSector.

Strategist
Seth Pearce at NYC Students Blog has an intriguing idea on how to overcome schools’ non-stop test preparation.

Lobbyist
PZ Meyers at Pharyngula has some news about a disturbing bill in the Oklahoma legislature regarding religion in schools.

Road Grader
As the great homework debate rages on, Shabam School makes a good case for grading homework.

Kindergarten Teacher (sorry, I couldn’t come up with anything else)
Kiri at Elbows, Knees, Dreams shares her thoughts (and asks for others’ opinions) about early entrance to Kindergarten.

Photo credit: ou_ags on flickr

Greene County, Georgia students are going to have to make some different plans for next year’s prom. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, all Greene County schools will be single-sex starting next year.

The article states that Superintendent Shawn McCollough made the move in order to improve student achievement in Greene county, where only 67 percent of freshmen go on to earn a diploma.

Predictably, parents and administrators are divided on the issue. Some say it’s unconstitutional or that it won’t work. McCollough and supporters say it’s perfectly legal, and that research supports his contention that grades will improve.

What do you think about this hot-button issue? Do we have any readers who went to a single-sex school growing up? Let your voice be heard in the comments. -BILL FERRIS

Ga. county going to all single-sex public schools