Home Front: New teachers will harness the power of technology tools to improve the education of students

With the release of Google Plus a few weeks ago, the general safety of social networking services is being raised by parents and teachers. I have received more questions than usual asking about the best ways for adults to interact with students through these services.

At Eastern Michigan University's College of Education, when it comes to training prospective teachers about social networking, the first message is safety. Entry-level teachers need to be aware of issues affecting the safety of their students and they must also safeguard their own professional reputations as teachers.

Social networking sites are here to stay. Although Facebook is hugely popular, the number of subscribers to it is almost two-thirds of the way toward 1 billion users, it is not the only network out there. Other such services with more than 100 million subscribers are rarely discussed in North America. With the exception of Twitter, most of us have not heard of Qzone, Habbo, Renren or Bebo. Social networking is huge, growing, and global.

The concerns for safety are global, too. I was recently in Japan looking at social networking in schools and found Mixi to be the social networking service of choice complete with its own unique games and distractions. I discovered that my Japanese counterparts in education share our concern about the influence of these sites on students and schools.

EMU's per-service teachers are trained, first, to consider the ramifications of social networking on the safety of students. In our required technology course, we have regular discussions about topics such as cyberbullying and students, by and large, take this issue quite seriously. We also discuss steps to take if a student is the victim of online bullying, including technological recourses and general habits of safety.

We discuss these safety behaviors in class and three concepts in particular stand out: the importance of learning how to adjust privacy settings; our awareness of the image of ourselves we are sharing with the world; and the fact that malicious words and inappropriate images have an online permanence with the potential to both haunt and hurt for years.

We also discuss the immensely powerful educational aspects of social networking. As a tool for reaching out to the community, social networking is unparalleled. I have heard some hope expressed that this latest Google venture may be a safe place for educators to set up a classroom presence online. That may be so, but something similar can already be done using Facebook and even other lesser known sites.

Small scale social networks, for example, are available to educators through services such as Ning.com and Spruz.com and are tailored for smaller groups such as classes, clubs and teams. There are also larger networks specifically aimed at schools such as TeachStreet, Learn Central and TeacherTube.

However, even a popular site like Facebook can be used to advantage by teachers since many students and their parents are already subscribed. Facebook provides the option of creating a specific page for a classroom, group, club, or team of your choice. You can also create a page for your professional persona where you can post items of relevance to your classroom or your career and ensure that your public face is the most professional one you can put forward.

As they begin to seek jobs, my students will proudly note on their résumés their professional web pages with links to relevant articles, embedded insightful videos, and professional images of themselves. These perceptive new teachers will be the ones to harness the power of these tools to improve the education of their students. Continued...

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Michael McVey of Saline is a professor of educational media and technology at Eastern Michigan University.

 

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With the release of Google Plus a few weeks ago, the general safety of social networking services is being raised by parents and teachers. I have received more questions than usual asking about the best ways for adults to interact with students through these services.

At Eastern Michigan University's College of Education, when it comes to training prospective teachers about social networking, the first message is safety. Entry-level teachers need to be aware of issues affecting the safety of their students and they must also safeguard their own professional reputations as teachers.

Social networking sites are here to stay. Although Facebook is hugely popular, the number of subscribers to it is almost two-thirds of the way toward 1 billion users, it is not the only network out there. Other such services with more than 100 million subscribers are rarely discussed in North America. With the exception of Twitter, most of us have not heard of Qzone, Habbo, Renren or Bebo. Social networking is huge, growing, and global.

The concerns for safety are global, too. I was recently in Japan looking at social networking in schools and found Mixi to be the social networking service of choice complete with its own unique games and distractions. I discovered that my Japanese counterparts in education share our concern about the influence of these sites on students and schools.

EMU's per-service teachers are trained, first, to consider the ramifications of social networking on the safety of students. In our required technology course, we have regular discussions about topics such as cyberbullying and students, by and large, take this issue quite seriously. We also discuss steps to take if a student is the victim of online bullying, including technological recourses and general habits of safety.

We discuss these safety behaviors in class and three concepts in particular stand out: the importance of learning how to adjust privacy settings; our awareness of the image of ourselves we are sharing with the world; and the fact that malicious words and inappropriate images have an online permanence with the potential to both haunt and hurt for years.

We also discuss the immensely powerful educational aspects of social networking. As a tool for reaching out to the community, social networking is unparalleled. I have heard some hope expressed that this latest Google venture may be a safe place for educators to set up a classroom presence online. That may be so, but something similar can already be done using Facebook and even other lesser known sites.

Small scale social networks, for example, are available to educators through services such as Ning.com and Spruz.com and are tailored for smaller groups such as classes, clubs and teams. There are also larger networks specifically aimed at schools such as TeachStreet, Learn Central and TeacherTube.

However, even a popular site like Facebook can be used to advantage by teachers since many students and their parents are already subscribed. Facebook provides the option of creating a specific page for a classroom, group, club, or team of your choice. You can also create a page for your professional persona where you can post items of relevance to your classroom or your career and ensure that your public face is the most professional one you can put forward.

As they begin to seek jobs, my students will proudly note on their résumés their professional web pages with links to relevant articles, embedded insightful videos, and professional images of themselves. These perceptive new teachers will be the ones to harness the power of these tools to improve the education of their students.

Michael McVey of Saline is a professor of educational media and technology at Eastern Michigan University.

 

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