Professional online networks

A quote from the Connected  Educator video that remains with me, says,”I can’t see how you can be an educator in the 21st century without being a connected educator.”

Another quote says, “...surround yourself with passionate educators from different backgrounds.”

I have never been keen to use social media in my personal life. I have tried using facebook, but could not sustain going onto it regularly. I have created a Twitter account a few years back and haven’t used it until we needed it during the face-to-face sessions. The past nine months since the start of this course using Google +,  has been the longest time I have consistently used social media and I have learned to  appreciate the benefits of being connected with my fellow Mindlabbers. This has motivated me to look into joining the  New Zealand Teachers Facebook to help me connect with passionate teachers all over New Zealand.

Our school have started to use Yammer - a social media tool - to share our successes in the classroom with our school community. It is still early days, but the tool is being used with varying levels of success by the different teams, which made me ask, “Why is that?”

To me the difference seems to be the teachers who are using the tool. For whatever reason, some teachers are putting more energy and time into adding content regularly, while it is just another thing to do for others. Not every teacher makes use of social media. According to Sharples et al (2016) the project falls flat unless the projects have experts to inspire and engage people,  because no one is required to participate. Without the presence of at least one expert per team, it then stands to reason that it is highly likely for such team’s use of social media to fall flat.

I have been fortunate to be exposed to research to influence my opinion of social media and opened my eyes to the possibilities presented by it. I am far from being an expert so it will be a while before I will be using it in the classroom. Further, effective learning will vary from student to student according to their knowledge and competence of these platforms. (Mindlab class notes, 2017). This quotation refers to students, but the same could be said for teachers: Effective use of social media platforms will vary from teacher to teacher, according to their knowledge and competence.

The use of social media is here to stay and we need to familiarise ourselves with it. Joining platforms that connect us with other professionals is a great way to start.

Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

We ask parents to give us permission to publish images (still and moving), displaying pieces of work (multimedia, written, musical etc) on school sites or in newsletters/publications. Most parents give their permission but some parents don’t, for very good reasons.

The requirement to honour the wishes of those parents creates an ethical dilemma for teachers because we want to share the fantastic things happening at school. However, deciding whether to post a picture of students taking part in a school-wide event, like the school Triathlon, becomes quite an undertaking, as a student with restricted permission could be in the photo.  Our school does have a document which indicates the permission levels for each class, but few teachers know all student in a school, let alone knowing in which class they are to do a quick check.  

A teacher may email photos to staff to check before he/she post it online and if nobody objects, goes ahead with posting the photos.

Potential issues with this:

• Did his/her colleagues get enough time to respond?
• Were his/her colleagues in a position to respond? Someone could be sick, or unable to check emails for whatever reason.
• Images of students could actually be posted online against their parents’ wishes/ instructions.

Posting a photo against parents ‘ wishes will violate our code of ethics, which requires teachers to show commitment to parents/guardians, and the family/whānau by respecting their right to privacy Teachers recognise they work in collaboration with the parents/guardians and family/whānau of learners, encouraging their active involvement in the education of their children. They acknowledge the rights of caregivers to consultation on the welfare and progress of their children and respect lawful parental authority (The Education Council Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers).

Potential negative consequences for the teacher and the school:

• This could compromise the trust the parents have in the school to care for their child - Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others is a fundamental principle that governs interactions of teachers. (The Education Council Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers)
• This could compromise the respectful relationships the school wants to build and maintain with the parent and the community.
• This could negatively affect relations between colleagues as the teacher who could not access emails, could then be involved in an unpleasant situation.
• This could negatively affect the relationship between the student and the teachers, which will affect student’s learning. The code of ethics requires teachers to develop and maintain professional relationships with learners based upon the best interests of those learners. As well as promote the emotional wellbeing of learners.
• News of this could spread and mobilise more parents against the school, which could turn ugly.

To prevent this, it may seem easier not to bother with posting school-wide photos at all, which has happened.

A better option may be to keep a record of students with restricted cyber-permission and include a recent photograph of each student. As the number of these students are usually low, it should make it easier to be checked by the teacher involved, without the need to involve everyone.