Tag Archives: facebook

Don’t Use a 2.0 Technology in a 1.0 Way

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by jurvetson

“And that’s the grand dilemma of social networking: it’s intended to allow participation, to let companies and individuals all engage and interact, but all too many are one way channels, broadcast media where responses or engagement is ignored completely.” — Dave Taylor

Many organizations or schools are starting to get on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon and seeing the importance of having a presence on the largest social networks. Yet, there is much more to Twitter than having an account, and unless you are Justin Bieber, you have to change your mindset to make meaningful use of social media.

The old-school philosophy of communication lent itself to making a fancy website so that you had a nice Web presence. Not only could you look flashy on the Internet, but there also was great opportunity to share key messages, events and happenings from your school. This was a step up from what many had done previously, and it was great for a prospective student or parent to look up information on a school before committing to be part of that community.

As we have progressed, not only in our use of technology but also our understanding of effective leadership, we know that communication includes effective talking but, more importantly, listening. Being able to hear what is being said from those we serve is extremely important to how we develop our schools, and the conversation is extremely valuable. Yet, many schools and organizations use social media in the old fashion: sharing information but not having a conversation. In reality, just because you have ears doesn’t mean you are listening.

Many businesses have a 1.0 mindset. They have a Twitter account to share sales, events or whatever with customers, and because of that type of information, they do have many followers. Yet, having followers does not mean that you have people who “buy” what you do or whom you are; they use your service because they have to, not because they are loyal. Schools should think about that as well. Would a parent or child want to stay in your school if there was another choice?

Recently, I wrote about United Airlines and its lack of response when dealing with my concerns about service. Its Twitter account seemingly is only about sharing information, not connecting with customers. The more savvy someone is with social media, the more frustrated the person will become with this approach, and if he or she has another option, the person will take it. Yet, someone such as Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi learned how to not only use Twitter but also to use it effectively to build his brand and win an election.

Ultimately, this is not about having a Twitter or Facebook account but about how we use it and about rethinking the work we do and how we connect to those we serve in our schools. Having a website on which YOU communicate while watching parents use a Twitter account through which THEY communicate doesn’t make sense anymore. We need to not only get into the same room but also talk when we are all there.

This post was originally shared on the SmartBlogs site.

Not Going Away

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Coming home from San Diego, I may have gone a little overboard on my shopping but I purposely left room in my suitcase to make sure I could bring some things home. Obviously not enough room though. With a 50 pound limit, my luggage weighed in at about 61 pounds so I knew that I would have to probably pay a fee for the excess weight. When asked if I was to take some stuff out and put it into another bag, they told me two bags would cost 60 dollars (because United charges you for even bringing one bag to San Diego) yet the fee for the extra 10 pounds would actually cost 200 dollars.

What? Who came up with this math?

I saw the picture below the other night and all I could think of is some corporate big wigs sitting in the United offices when they came up with this luggage policy:

So the deal is that I could actually pack 100 pounds of stuff in two bags and bring it back to Canada for 60 dollars or 61 pounds in one bag for $200. Not being a mathematician, something obviously was not adding up although I do know that most airline companies have this ridiculous type of policy.

So what was my first reaction? Go to Twitter. I went to the masses and tweeted something out regarding this ridiculous policy hoping United would respond.

So after that, I hear nothing from United. Nada. What could you answer? Even the people at the desk know it is an idiotic policy and said it when I checked in but short of change it, the company is obviously more interested in the quick buck then it is in long term customer satisfaction. I’m not saying that I will never fly with them again, but it will be a last resort.

Organizations and leadership has to realize that we all have a voice now. Check out what happened when someone made a joke about the durability of Smart Cars. (Thanks to 22 Words for the story)

Not wanting to let someone else define what Smart is about, they responded in a humouros yet informational way:

Then they actually followed up with a picture proving what they are saying:

So here is a company taking some bad publicity, and actually coming out looking much better in the end because they not only addressed the person, but also because of the way that they addressed them. To be honest, I have never thought much about Smart Cars, but I had a newfound respect in the way that they addressed a naysayer. They probably received a ton of great publicity from that one simple tweet than they have with their regular advertising strategy.

I guess what they have realized, and what schools need to realize, is that the Internet is not going away. People know that they have a voice and why wouldn’t they use it? I know United has not had a long time to respond to me but are they going to really change their policy? Will they even have a logical explanation?

Schools and administrators need to be aware of this world and be able to address all stakeholders in an open and transparent way. Would we rather look like United or would we rather look Smart?

You Should Read…(January 15, 2012)

Technology is More than a Tool

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Definition: Tool – (noun) A device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.

Often the saying, “technology is just a tool”, is said in the context of schools and learning. I (vaguely) remember writing a similar comment and being challenged regarding that same statement, but since then I have looked at technology in a different way. Based on the definitions I have read, and the way I see technology (in many cases) being used, it has the power to be so much more than a website, device, or app. If technology transforms the way we do things, is it “just a tool”?

For example, Neil Postman talks about technology being ecological and how it changes society:

Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. I can explain this best by an analogy. What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America plus television. Television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so on.

There is so much more to the “just a tool” analogy in this example. The invention of the airplane changed the way our world works and that would also fall under the realm of “technology”. Even though Louis C.K. is joking on this little bit, he does show the transformation of our world when the airplane was invented:

People like they say there’s delays on flights (yeah) delays really New York to California in 5 hours. That used to take 30 years to do that and a bunch of you would die on the way there and have a baby. You’d be with a whole different group of people by the time you got there.

If you even look at modern day technology, the invention of Google (along with prior and subsequent search engines), has really changed the way school should be taught. Why do we need to focus on content when all of the information you need is a “Google” away. Really, can schools stay the same with Google existing? It doesn’t make sense if they do.

Facebook, like it or not, is a whole different way of connecting with people. For me, it was the phone that I spent an inordinate amount of time on, but for the new generation, it’s this social network. It is not only a place you can connect with friends, but you can also share your life, play games, and even have advertising brought right to you. Like it or not, it is a technology that is transformative.

Twitter and mobile devices have also pushed the edges of the way our society exists. The recent pepper spray incident at UC Davis, still gives me shivers every time I think about it. The way news can be instantly delivered from anyone with one of these devices and a social media account, is changing how we live our lives, and is hopefully creating more accountability for all people. It is scary to think how many incidents like the UC Davis event have happened before the mass use of technology.

I guess the reason I even wrote this post in the first place, was from the inspiration of a picture. I have struggled back and forth with the idea of whether technology is just a tool, or is it truly transformative. Yes, the way people use technology is important, but again, when used in a certain way, it transforms. I am certain I may be saying something that has been said by Neil Postman and others, but again, it was a visual that inspired this post.

If my examples above haven’t swayed you, maybe the picture below will:

I just look at that picture and think it has to be more than a tool.

The Power to Kill Innovation

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From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thenextweb/4560108299/

This summer, I wrote a post discussing the world of social media, and how our administrators need to jump in and lead our schools in this “new world”. Here is one of the things that I wrote in that post:

There can no longer be an “opt out” clause when dealing with technology in our schools, especially from our administrators. We need to prepare our kids to live in this world now and in the future. Change may feel hard, but it is part of learning. We expect it from our kids, we need to expect it from ourselves.

Last weekend, I was disheartened (as many were) reading a Matt Gomez post on the end of Facebook in his Kindergarten classroom (you should really read it and the comments). The first thing I thought when reading it was, “Seriously, he is using Facebook with his Kindergarten students?” I was shocked because I did not really understand how he would be doing this, but I continued to read on. Here is where the post really got my attention:

“My class Facebook page is shutting down this week. I was told that the district does not support it and thus must close it down. I knew this might happen, it was a risk I took in trying something so unknown without permission. I had prepared myself for this day. The page was very successful and I feel I met my goal of showing that there is more we can do to engage parents (see HERE) . Actually the success of the page is what led to its demise. The great teachers I work with also wanted to use the tool and parents began to ask why I was the only one using it. This made my principal need to address the situation and the final solution is closing it down.”

So…a teacher does something that is innovative and pushing the boundaries in the classroom, and it is shut down because it has been successful? I was dumbfounded reading this. Don’t we want our teachers to be innovative? I have seen schools try to use tools that “look” like Facebook to kids, but at the end of the day, kids go to Facebook (or Twitter, or blogs, etc.) and we need to go past “relevant” and move to “real”.

I actually sent a message to Matt and asked him if he thought the blog post was appropriate. Here is what he said to me (paraprhased): ”I really believe that this is in the best interests of kids and families and I am willing to stand up to do what is right.” As soon as he said that, I asked him if I could actually go look at the Facebook page and was absolutely AMAZED at some of the comments I read from parents:

“Just watched this and got goosebumps. Thank you for going the extra mile to share Julie’s (and your classroom’s) educational experiences with our family. It has been an answered prayer to know Julie had such a wonderful teacher and great start to his education.”

“Mr.Gomez, as a first time kindergarten parent I was very concerned about how my child would do all day in school,your Facebook page has given me the peace of mind to know that she is having a fun day filled with learning and growth. Also with your lessons that are posted on here it give us parents a heads up on the standard what did you do today answer of “nothing”,we now know what they did&can easily engage them in further expansion of that lesson,class project,etc. I really do thank you for all you have done for our children and us parents,I will miss our Facebook next school year…”

“Any chance the 1st grade teachers will have a Facebook page?”

Powerful huh? Parents give us their children to take care of and nurture for a large part of their day. I watched Matt, through these comments and many others, connect with parents in an extremely powerful way. How important is this for parents in Kindergarten class? With some of them having their first child in school, I watched in an amazement their connection to the classroom and to the teacher.

Here you have parents, working with teachers, in a space that they are all in anyway, creating relationships, learning about classroom initiatives, while modelling for students a positive digital identity. This is not only teaching the students about the positive interactions that are so important in online spaces, but in reality, it is also doing this with parents. Read comments in almost any mainstream news site, and you will see some adults not acting so appropriate. We can all learn together.

In this whole thing, I am really looking for the negative in what Matt was doing.

Although I did not ask Matt, my guess is that he did not force parents to join Facebook but he went to where they were. Even a year ago, I asked our parents how we could get more parents to visit our blog at school and help to build connections. One of our very thoughtful parents said to me, “You need to be on Facebook; that is where we all are.” A Facebook page was made in the next hour.

If you check out Matt’s post and read the comments, you will see that not everyone agrees with what he was doing. As an educator, when doing this type of work, I always ensure that parents are comfortable in the work that we are doing with their child and they do not have to partake in anything that they are uncomfortable with. What I do believe though is that what Matt was doing was preparing kids, with their parents, to see how this space can be used positively before they are given the opportunity to go there alone. We always talk to our kids about driving in a car, then we sit beside them before they take the wheel; this space should be no different. Guidance is essential.

Just for the record, I totally believe that this decision was not made to hurt kids and has the best intentions in mind, but when we do not fully understand the things that are happening in the world, we need to either immerse ourselves in them, or trust those that do.

For me, this is something that those that administrators need to understand. They have the power to encourage or kill innovation in our school, and I am wondering what happens to the heart and morale of a teacher that has tried something which has been proven to be successful, to only find that it is shut down?

Reading Chris Kennedy’s post yesterday and seeing how principals are jumping out into the blogging world despite their own fears, I really believe that this is what we should be embodying to our students:

We often talk about the many changes happening in education and how we, as leaders, need to model the change. We want students to take the risks, own their learning, be ready to make mistakes but to learn from them as well, and to create content for the digital world. We can help by modelling all of this.

The world is changing extremely fast but ignoring it and pretending that things don’t exist outside our school walls is not going to help our kids. Immersing ourselves in the world and continuously learning alongside our community is what we need to model.

I am really looking forward to reading Matt’s post where he discusses all of the cool things he is doing to connect with his parents through Facebook and role modelling for his students, while sharing the amazing things that they are doing. I am just hoping it happens.

Figuring out Facebook

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cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by Nikke Lindqvist

I am all for effective use of social media in the classroom, when working with our students. The one thing that I am having trouble with though, and seeing over and over again is the thought of “friending” students on the network and how teachers are getting frustrated with laws in states that are prohibiting this. Now that there has to be a law for something that should be common sense might be going overboard, but this is what is happening right now in Missouri as well as other areas in North America. (There is way more to this story than simply the “friending” issue, but it is at the heart of it.)

Here is my own personal guidelines for Facebook with students. While they are students or minors, we should never “friend” them. When they are done K-12, then it is fine, but I think while students are in school, friending them is not the best idea.

Vicki Davis reiterated my beliefs on the topic (ironically using Facebook as the platform)

(Vicki also has a great post on Facebook use for educators.)

It is not that you can’t use Facebook in schools. My former school had a Facebook page that we used to share information with students and parents to communicate information. I have also seen many teachers create a Facebook page to have discussions in their classroom or share things such as an agenda. The difference between a “page” and “friending” students is that if your privacy settings are set correctly, students are not able to see personal information about you.

The concern is not that YOU will do something that is inappropriate (you would always be mindful of your digital footprint right?), but I have a lot of my own friends who are not educators who are free to post on my wall, who may not be as mindful of their digital footprint as I am. There is also times when you can easily get spam on your wall from a friend when they have accidentally clicked a link and spammed it out to everyone. As you can see from my screen schot of Vicki’s work, it is not that hard to capture what is posted on a wall and share it with the world easily misinterpreting something.

So am I off? Is there something I am missing in this area? I truly believe in the importance of strong relationships with our students, but there are always lines; this is one that I believe we should not cross.

Absence of Trust

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by dannysullivan

Nothing says, “I trust you”, less than blocking websites in organizations and schools.

I recently read how Rhode Island has now outlawed social media in schools (at last glance their legislative assembly currently has 11 likes on their Facebook page they must have a total understanding of social media) and it is just amazing to me the giant step backwards we see in some areas of education. Now the purpose of law is a valuable one, as they are trying to limit cyberbullying and some of the implications it can have on the well being of students. I am all for safety, and cyberbullying does exist, but does it help when we don’t work with our students in places that they will go anyway? The article goes on to talk about how the “federal filters” may limit access, but only for a limited amount of time:

And we’ve seen that students, running into the filter, just shrug and access the content at home or on their phones or laptops, making the filters serve no greater purpose than to push students to the same content that is supposedly risky, except in places where there aren’t teachers to help them.

This slightly strange video (the voices are just off and weird) does bring up a good point about the blocking of these tools in schools. The one character wonders out loud how she can become a journalist when schools are blocking the sites that journalists use to connect, learn, and share information with other. We want students to be immersed in the real world right?

It is not only students have have this access blocked, but educators as well. I could not even begin to tell you the number of educators that have shared their frustration with me that they cannot access valuable content at their schools, or connect with many in a real-time relevant way. I was actually working with a group this year in a school when Superintendent Chris Kennedy’s blog, “The Culture of Yes”, was actually blocked when I tried to access it. I wonder what filter keywords stopped it? “Positive and upbeat” or “highly valuable information”? Now I know it was probably remedied quickly after, but how it got caught in a filter scares me. Were “blogs” being blocked because of the component of chat that can happen through the comments? When we have resources like this sharing awesome information that most likely only educators would access, there is a major problem.

From a work study in 2009, it was actually noted that productivity did not decrease when sites such as YouTube and Facebook were opened:

Study author Brent Coker, from the department of management and marketing, said “workplace Internet leisure browsing,” or WILB, helped to sharpened workers’ concentration. ”People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration…Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days’ work, and as a result, increased productivity,” he said.

As noted in the study though, the people with Internet addictions obviously had less productivity. Although this problem is real with some, is it the majority? Do we need to continue making rules for the majority when it is based on the actions of a few?

My own beliefs however tell me that people are not only missing out on the connection that social media may bring to them at their workplace (do we also ban phone calls home to family?), but it is the morale that is most highly impacted. We should know that great organizations are built first upon trust, but by saying “we trust you” and then shutting down websites that can actually enhance learning is simply a misalignment of actions and beliefs.

Recently I shared a YouTube video and I received a thank you from a teacher who said they were looking forward to watching it at home since YouTube was blocked in their school. What? Really?

Someone said this to me and it really stuck in my head:

…there are two places that are making efforts to ban social media in the world; China and schools.

How accurate that statement is, I am not sure, but are schools rushing to open sites that have been continuously blocked? The talk of “21st Century Learning” is so prevalent in our conversations yet teaching and working with our kids to ensure their safety is much more important than pretending the world outside doesn’t exist.

You see countries such as Egypt begin to block social media as revolutions begin; is there one coming the way of education?

Are we a part of the problem?

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“Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technologies—it happens when society adopts new behaviors.” Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

This week for me, started off with attending an Royal Canadian Mounted Police presentation discussing “Internet Safety”. A majority of the presentation discussed the “threats” of technology and mostly social media, which is understandable since the police want to keep our society as safe as possible. With all of that being said, the office delivering the presentation did however say that this technology is going to change, and we need to ensure that our students are safe.

As the week progressed though, I saw many articles discussing issues with social media that spilled out in schools:

With all of these issues though (just from this last week), we cannot lose our focus on all of the good things that are happening using social media as well:

We shouldn’t lose our perspective. For every story like this, there are many more about kids behaving well, intelligently, harmlessly, creatively. What an incident points out is that there are new kinds of ethics afoot, and along with them, new kinds of behavioral considerations to deal with.

The reality of the world is though that students are using Facebook (along with other social media sites) and that there are many opportunities to use this effectively in the classroom. The BBC News recently reported that “82% of 16 to 18 year olds” use Facebook everyday. In the same article, the author suggests that these social media skills will be needed to be successful in the work place.

Social networking requires skills that would be useful to employers, he says, such as collaborating and interacting in a creative way. It could also be used to develop communities of interest groups – and he suggests that it could be useful for teachers in subject areas to share ideas.

Now here we are with conflicting viewpoints that on one hand say using social media can be harmful to our students, while the other view discusses how these are skills that are useful to employers. As was stated earlier, this technology is not going away. In fact, the more websites I use the more they become “social” as they know connecting with each other will lead to greater usage. It is not the technology that many of use are enamored with, it is the ability to easily connect with one another.

What are we as schools doing to not only curb these problems but also using this technology to help our students have better opportunities to thrive in the workplace? Many educational institutions have taken the stance that it is better to close down all social media sites as to solve the issues of cyberbullying, but this lends to our students not being prepared for their futures.

So what have we done in other harmful situations? Take the issue of drugs. We do not pretend they don’t exist with our students, but we talk to our children about the dangers of them and educate our students. Over and over again we have shown that education is a way to solve and learn about our problems and a refusal to acknowledge them only makes things worse. The difference however with drugs and social media is that the technology can be used in very effective ways to learn, grow, and pursue your passion. Most agree that there are many benefits of this technology.

I wonder in the cases of all the schools that were listed earlier in this post, if they had used social media in positive ways and educated their students on the harmful effects as well as the consequences of cyberbullying? Although we know that people will tend to do bad things no matter how well they are educated, and that ultimately it is the person using the technology that is the issue, not the technology, how have we dealt with this? We tell our students on one hand that they are accountable for their behaviour on websites and this is part of the “real world” yet sometimes ask them to sign up for sites using an anonymous name. Does that not seem quite contradictory?

As educators, we need to work with our students at an early age and discuss openly the positives and negatives of social media both for their learning, future employment, and even personal relationships. We must do the “driver training” and guide our students before they go out on their own. The fact is that many of our kids are venturing out into this “brave new world” alone, without any guidance from educators and sometimes even parents. As educators, we need to work with our students and even their parents (if they are uncomfortable) to educate them both on the perils and benefits of this technology.

We know that there is more to bullying than just the use of technology but with the use of technology, the truth is that the message and hurt can move a lot further and quicker than ever before. So to answer the title of the post, my own belief is that as educators, we are not necessarily a part of the problem. However, I do believe that we can be a part of the solution. That is more powerful.

Knowledge is power. Let’s work with our students so that they make the right choices in this new world that they are facing.

Do I Deserve Your Attention?

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Compliance in a classroom can be easy but it is not effective. Engagement is effective but it is more work (but better work).

Are your kids paying attention because they want to or because they have to? Dean Shareski shared this fantastic video in our session at ATLE this morning that made me think from the mind of a student in the class.

What are your students thinking?

The Principal of Change

Stories of learning and leading

Tag Archives: facebook

You Should Read…(January 15, 2012)

Technology is More than a Tool

The Power to Kill Innovation

Do I Deserve Your Attention?