Board of Education Social Media/Networking Discussion

On Thursday, March 10, 2011, sometime between 7-8:30 pm Mountain Time (depends on how the agenda goes), we will be having a discussion with our Board of Education surrounding Social Media/Social Networking and K-12 schools. Details are still to be ironed out, but we expect to host a web page with the presentation and a CoverItLive live blog session embedded side-by-side, and also plan to have a live stream that can be opened separately (URL to follow).

Some of the questions/issues we�re likely to address are:

What is social media/networking? How is it different? Why is it important?

What is the social value of social media/networking?

What are the realities and what are the myths? What are the risks and what are the benefits?

What are the organizational, communication, and learning power of these services?

How can these be used for learning and collaboration, not just echo-chamber and group think?

What is their role in K-12 education? (Note: I�m in high school, so that�s my focus, and I imagine most of the focus in this discussion will be age 13 and up, but thoughts on younger ages are welcome as well.)

What should Board policy look like surrounding social media/networking? Should there be policy? If so, should it be just for this, or should it fall under our current code of conduct and we don�t need a separate policy?

What should our Internet filter policy be for this? What about students that use their phones/own connection to the Internet while at school and therefore aren�t restricted by our filter?

We�ll use the hashtag #BoardChat

Proposed Prezi Presentation (First Draft 2-20-11, feedback to Dan Maas).

Please leave any thoughts you have about the above items � or additional related items not listed -in this Google Doc. Thanks in advance.

Looking for Virtual School Board Members - Are You Interested?

Anne Smith and Maura Moritz are having their ninth graders choose a book, read it, and then discuss it in small groups. That�s not all that different than what has been going on in Language Arts classrooms for quite a while, but they�re extending the idea just a little bit. The students chose books that are somewhat controversial (1984, The Fountainhead, I Robot, Little Brother, Anthem, I Am the Cheese) and have either been challenged or banned by school districts around the country (to be clear, not necessarily our school district). The students will read and discuss the books and then have to prepare a presentation for the school board arguing either in favor of approving the book for use or defending blocking its use. They�ll follow our district�s process for book approvals (pdf). In Anne�s case they are also using a Google Site with integrated Google Groups to help organize their thinking and collaboratively plan their presentations.

When the presentations are ready, the students � for their final exam � will actually make the presentation to selected members of our own school board that we�ve invited to hear the presentations. The school board members will listen to the presentation, ask questions, make them defend their positions, and generally be � well, school board members.

There�s only one problem with this plan. Some of our school board members already have commitments during our final exam times (pesky little things like graduation ceremonies for our sister high schools, for example). Hmm, what to do? I know, invite other folks in to be �school board members.� What other folks, you ask? Well, you, for example. Anyone who�s interested and is available at the times the students will be presenting (more on that in a minute) would serve as a �virtual school board member,� watching and listening to the presentation via ustream (or MeBeam, or Skype, or . . . tool to be determined based on participants) and then providing feedback/asking questions via Skype/MeBeam/whatever (again, tool to be determined based on participants access). (As a side benefit, parents can tune in to watch their student's final exam live.)

Just as regular school board members have not always read the book in question, you do not have to have read the book (although if you have, or if you�re willing to try to read one or more before then, that would be excellent). You would be responsible for generally being prepared to participate as a �serious� school board member (review these two (pdf) documents) to get a feel for our process).

So, if you�re interested in participating, we�d love to have you. You need to send an email to me (karlfisch {at} gmail {dot} com) as soon as possible with the following information: name, location, position, digital footprint information (blog, wiki, twitter, etc.), skype name, and the time(s) you are available (chosen from the list below). Please keep in mind we do have limited spots so � if we happen to get a ton of responses (unlikely this time of year, but you never know) � we may not be able to accept everybody.

Here is the list of times (all times Mountain Daylight Time, UTC/GMT -6) and the books that will be presented during those times (please keep in mind that times are estimates, some groups may go over and some may end early � you�ve done this type of things with students, right?). It would be great if you could sign up for an entire class period, but if you only have time for a partial period, we�ll try to work it out.

Friday, May 15th - Need Participants (last day of classes, 59 minute periods)

Period 2: 8:25-9:24 am
Anthem / I Am the Cheese (approx. 8:25 � 8:45)
I Robot (~8:45 � 9:05)
1984 (~9:05 � 9:24)

Period 3: 9:29-10:30 am
Little Brother (~9:30 � 9:50)
1984 (~ 9:50 � 10:10)
I Robot (~10:10 � 10:30)

Period 4: 10:35- 11:34 am
Little Brother (~10:35 � 10:55)
1984 (~10:55 � 11:15)
I Robot (~11:15 � 11:34)

Period 5: 12:14-1:12 pm
Anthem/ I Am the Cheese (~12:14 � 12:34)
I Robot (~12:34 � 12:53)
Little Brother (~12:53 � 1:12)

Monday, May 18th - Do Not Need Participants, but will ustream 10:35 am � 12:00 pm

Tuesday, May 19th - Do Not Need Participants, but will ustream from 9:00 am � 10:25 am

Wednesday, May 20th - Need Participants (Final Exams, 85 minute exams)

Period 4: 7:25- 8:50 am
1984 (~7:30 � 7:50)
Little Brother (~7:50 � 8:10)
Anthem/I Am the Cheese (~8:10 � 8:30)
I Robot (~8:30 � 8:50)

Period 5: 10:35 am - 12:00 pm
Anthem/I Am the Cheese (~10:40 � 11:00)
Fountainhead (~11:00 � 11:20)
I Robot (~11:20 � 11:40)
1984 (~11:40 � 12:00)

Thanks in advance to those that are willing to participate. Even if you don�t want to formally participate, you�re welcome to watch the ustream if you have time. And, even if we end up with no virtual participants, I still think Anne and Maura have a great activity here.

Think Pink: A Whole New Learning Experience

Maura Moritz and Anne Smith have just begun an interesting project with four sections of their ninth grade honors language arts students (Maura's class blog, Anne's class blog.) The students are reading Daniel Pink�s A Whole New Mind, discussing it in class, and then writing a thesis driven persuasive essay built around one of Pink�s six senses (Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, or Meaning).

As part of their discussions in class, the students will participate in a fishbowl discussion with live blogging. This is something they�ve done previously (although this is the first time with a non-fiction book), but this time they�ll have some additional participants in their live blogging � including the author. When the students discuss and live blog Chapter 7 (Empathy), Daniel Pink will be live blogging it with them. In addition, after finishing the entire book, the students will participate in a live videoconference with Mr. Pink.

Since Mr. Pink is presumably a very busy guy, he will only be live blogging that one chapter with the students. So we�ve invited a few other folks to live blog the other �Sense� chapters with the students. This includes local folks like our superintendent, our CIO, and two of our school board members, but also includes a variety of folks from around the world that are members of my personal learning network. (Thanks to everyone who agreed to participate. We didn�t want too many and tried to get gender balance and at least some geographic distribution, but of course time zone differences cause some problems there.)

As the students progress through their study of the book and its related concepts, they will also keep a Personal Learning Journal (some will do it online, others will keep it more private). They will:

reflect on the process of reading AWNM, relate the book to your own personal lives through a variety of reactions, reflect on your brain assessments, the AWNM video, as well as try one suggested activity within each Sense�s portfolio (Design, Story Symphony, Empathy, Play, Meaning). Also, we will ask you to reflect on how each Sense applies to you personally through your classes and life.

For those of you who haven�t read the book, at the end of each "Sense" chapter Mr. Pink includes some suggested activities that help the reader explore and/or develop that sense further. The students will each choose one of those activities for each chapter, complete it, and then reflect upon it.

When it comes time to write their persuasive essay about one of the Senses, the students will complete a "Wikified Research Paper." They will:

publish your paper in a wiki format, allowing you to use links in your argumentative paper to your actual research and go beyond the limits of the usual typed paper. Students could add data, photos, audio and video links, etc.

The students will also use the wiki for the entire writing process.

I, of course, love this idea, and am excited to see how it goes. As always the first time you try something, I expect there will be glitches along the way, but I still anticipate this being a wonderful learning experience for our students. Whether you particularly like Pink�s book and agree with his arguments or not, I think most folks would agree that these are important concepts for today�s learners to think about. This project will allow them to think much more deeply about these ideas and hear a variety of viewpoints from around the globe � I commend Maura and Anne for taking this on. I particularly like how they close their description of the Wikified Research Paper:

Before you submit your paper, think about this. Normally you would turn your paper in to your teacher and your teacher would provide the commentary and grade your paper. This paper is different. You are producing this paper for the world. Is it good enough for the world to read? Did you submit your best work?

AHS Students - Your Opinion Wanted

As I mentioned in my previous post, Dan Maas - the CIO of Littleton Public Schools - has a blog. His latest post is about some initial research around Maine's 1:1 Laptop Initiative which shows that student writing is improving.

While that's worth blogging about in and of itself, what interests me most is the 29 comments (so far), mostly by ninth graders at my school. This was not an assignment, nor were they asked to comment, but their teacher did point the post out to them. The 29th comment is from one of our school board members, who asks for additional input from students, specifically from those that are not in a classroom with regular access to laptops.

I left a comment with a link to some discussions students had last year around this issue, but we have quite a few more students with access to laptops this year - as well as the majority who do not. So, AHS students, this is your chance. Whether you are in any classes that use laptops or not, and whether you think laptops are a good idea or a bad idea (or a little of both), please visit his blog and leave a thoughtful, constructive comment (please remember to use first name and last initial only for your name). This is a chance to have your voice heard, please make it worthwhile, and do your best to make sure it's not the last.

School Board Policy 2.0

I received an email recently from a school board member wondering if I knew of any school districts that had policies related to Web 2.0 tools. Now I know that most districts have policies relating to acceptable use of the Internet and regarding the use of an Internet filter, but that�s not what she was asking about. She wasn�t asking about policies restricting or regulating the use of Web 2.0 tools, she was asking about policies that encouraged their use.

Our board of education would like to move faster and generate more systemic growth and are exploring the possibility of writing a policy that would reflect our commitment to 21st century skills/tech tools . . . [We are] focused on working with our administrators and teachers to design/implement programs that are not "add ons". . . What we really want is to bring more people along more quickly - therefore we are exploring the possibility of writing a policy that will empower and support teachers, but at the same time, clearly state that the board is looking for implementation.

She indicated that they have small groups of teachers that are using tools such as Moodle, podcasts and wikis, and they are slowly spreading the word, but the board is wondering how to foster a more systemic application of 21^st century tools.

I replied that I didn�t know of any districts that had such a policy, but I�d throw it out to the rest of the blogosphere to see if anyone else did. If you know of any, or have any suggestions, please leave a comment and I�ll send it along.