Bans Stifle Social Media’s Potential
3/2/2009 - NSTA Reports—Lynn Petrinjak
Are you LinkedIn? Do your students Tweet during a field trip? If you’re like
many NSTA members, the answer is “yes” with a caveat: Not in school.
Preliminary results of a recent online survey of NSTA members show more than
half use social media websites at school for professional development and to
obtain classroom resources. However, more than 80% of respondents said their
schools block internet access to at least some social media sites. In some
cases, educators work around this obstacle by downloading materials at home or
using personal laptops with wireless connections or other mobile devices in the
classroom. Others use methods their administrators—and information technology
(IT) colleagues—would likely disapprove of, such as enlisting students’ help to
circumvent site blocks or accessing proxy servers.
Some educators follow protocol, submitting requests to administrators or IT
staff for access to the sites they need. However, many report frustration with
this method. Among the comments shared:
• “I have to justify it to the principal, who then has to justify
it to the administration, who then say no anyway.”
• “I have to ask for it to be unblocked on my computer, but our IT
guys aren’t here on site.”
• “Beg and plead, but usually to no avail.”
• “Impossible, they won’t listen.”
Such comments indicate these obstacles cause many teachers to simply give up
using social media tools in the classroom. Unfortunately, these teachers miss
out on opportunities to collaborate with colleagues, and their students lose
the opportunity to collaborate with one another.
Gaining Access
James Gates, a recently retired computer science teacher, thinks simple
ignorance lies behind many school districts’ decisions to block access to social
media sites. Now working as a technology consultant and posting daily technology
tips during the school year on his blog, Tipline, he notes most school
districts in his area of south central Pennsylvania block all blogs. “There has to
be a misunderstanding of what the tool is…the reason they cite is ‘it’s a
distraction’ or problems with cyberbullying, problems carrying over to school”
from an online forum, Gates says. Other administrators may point to the
potential for inappropriate contact between educators and students. “Some teachers can
take 50 kids over to Europe for 10 days, but they can’t [communicate with
students through social networks]. It drives me crazy.”
Teachers have an “ethical obligation to teach kids” how to use social media
appropriately, declares Ben Smith, a physics teacher at Red Lion Area Senior
High School in south central Pennsylvania. “Our district has a policy that
teachers may not be ‘friends’ of students. If we can’t see the site, we can’t
advise them ‘that’s not appropriate.’ Kids post these things and think they’ll
go away.”
For instance, Smith helped set up a program providing all students with
e-mail accounts, which he pilot tested with his class before making it available to
the general student population. Although the pilot went smoothly, problems
quickly emerged. “In the first day [of being available schoolwide], we had 73
blocked [e-mail] messages,” he says. Messages were blocked for containing
content deemed inappropriate by filters, such as comments on other students’
anatomy. “It was a good demonstration [for students] that there are places you should
not be doing that. Personal here, school or business [over] here.”
Bonnie Bracey Sutton, curriculum developer at Thornburg Center for
Professional Development in Lake Barrington, Illinois ( a virtual center), says parent
education can be key to increasing access to social media. “I like to bring
parents to school and show what their kids have been missing,” she says. “People
who know technology but don’t know how it is used block [web-based
collaboration sites like NING or various wikis].” Sutton says she has been working with
others in the field, “fighting [to ensure] the beauty of the internet—access
to wonderful resources—isn’t diminished by fear.”
When attempting to access a blocked site, Gates advises first identifying its
value, asking the question, “What do these tools allow us to do that we can’
t do without them?” Then educators have to learn why the site is blocked and
who can unblock it.
“They have to be very clear what objections are to that site, meet with the
superintendent or whoever makes the decision,” Gates suggests. “If the
objection is to blogs because students might embarrass the school, they can show
platforms with teacher moderation. They [administrators or IT personnel] may say ‘
we block all wikis because anybody could post anything.’ They don’t want to
teach proper behavior…[that is] negligence of our responsibility.”
To support their request to use wikis in the classroom, Gates suggests
teachers use the Flat Classroom project wiki as an example. Working from Georgia and
Bangladesh, teachers Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay set up a wiki as an
assessment project for their classes. “They built a wiki together, used NING to
communicate with each other,” Gates says. “They used NING to upload videos. That’
s how the kids got to know each other in an environment they’re familiar with
that has the feel of a Facebook.” He adds the Flat Classroom project now
includes 13 classrooms in eight countries.
Social media offers many benefits to educators, according to Smith. Free
online software such as graphic organizers can be substituted for software
requiring licensing fees, and students can work on team projects from multiple
locations.
“I think social networking has a bad name…we have to remember one of the
best ways to educate kids is a collaborative environment,” contends Smith, who
also conducts workshops and seminars on education technology as a consultant and
partner in EdTechInnovators. “We need to leverage the technology. We’re
trying to make the case to administrators: You need to go in, create an account,
and see (what it’s about).”
Smith cites the photo-sharing website Flickr as an illustration. “Kids on
field trips will take pictures on site and then upload them [to Flickr] using
their phones. By the time we get back, the pictures are already ready to use,” he
explains. In addition, his physics students use school laptops to photograph
labs, then post the photos online. “This serves as [a] great review. Sometimes
we say everybody upload; sometimes we assign one group. Sometimes I let kids
sign licensing agreements. For example, if one lab group’s pictures didn’t
work out, they can ask permission to use another group’s pictures.”
Because online options for educators continue to expand and evolve, the
question of access will continue to need to be addressed and revisited.