680-Navigating Social Media

 

We use Twitter and Instagram in our library as a way to communicate and share information with students and staff. I don’t think many families follow us or that we particularly do a good job of reaching out to families.  One of the main reasons we started to use Twitter and Instagram was to share schedules with students, now with remote learning, we are mostly sharing new tools, tutorials, and book talks. In an always-connected world, I think it is important that we share with and reach out to our students, staff, and families. 

We have a pretty standard policy when it comes to inappropriate technology use, the first time students log into the district Chromebooks they have to agree to follow the policies. Honestly, I think most of them click on the "agree" without reading the statement. When we work with freshmen students we always remind them of the policy and the fact that there is not an expectation of privacy on district-owned devices and networks.  Additionally, when we work with classes we remind them of copyright laws and how they apply to in-school projects versus projects they will work for the outside world to consume (creating a blog or web posting versus a Google Slide in-class presentation). 

I think school leaders need to have more conversations with students, what is their perception of cyberbullying, how do they experience it, how do they think it can be solved or prevented.  I think we do a good job of trying to talk to students but at times our messages seem so prescriptive that they can’t relate to the message.