Internet in Education
Do you remember when the internet first came out? Do you remember teachers having to run into the computer lab an hour before wanting to use the computers just to get them started? Do you remember the days of working on classroom projects by hand and using the library encyclopedias? How about teachers sending home packets of information in hopes they reached your parents for a signature? When did we leap from the past to the present? Were there definitive stepping blocks or just one giant leap?
Raise your hand if your high school blocked “MySpace” when it first came out? Or had other sites that were “restricted”? My hand is up. Gone are the days of pencil and paper reports, of teachers sending home packets of information. These days, schools are taking leaps and bounds to get in touch with the school community and are using their resources to better meet the needs of the students’ social networking and parental needs. While not every school in every district allows and uses Facebook, Twitter and other social media, there are several who are paving the way for these internet tools to become useful and necessary in the classroom as a way to teach and to reach out to parents and community members.
Many schools are expanding their classrooms to the internet using Facebook and Twitter because they are free. Schools are using these sites as a means to communicate with parents, faculty, staff, students and other districts. As always, there are pros and cons to any tool the internet may provide us. David Cawthorne, a district technology director in the Weymouth Public Schools stated that Facebook is a good tool and engages kids “but from a district perspective, there are just too many uncertainties” (Schachter, 2011). The Weld Re-4 School District in Colorado prohibited social networking for educational or administrative purposes until last spring, citing “we define social medias as an Internet-based tool for sharing and discussing information among users” (Schachter, 2011). While there are continually going to be pros and cons to using media and internet-based tools in education, we must remember that there have always been pros and cons to teaching students, regardless of the media. Remember when you could only was G-rated movies in schools? They have since allowed PG-movies and in some schools PG-13 movies if parental signatures are acquired.
The Weld Re-4 School District is leading others into the Web 2.0 era by focusing on the connections that are possible through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as collaborative writing and editing tools such as Google Docs and Edmodo (Schachter, 2011). Michael Roe, a high school principal in California now uses Facebook to communicate daily with over 5,000 parents, students, teachers and staff members. He uses his page to post announcements, pictures and links to interesting videos. Roe shared that “within the first month, we had over 200 [parents] members” on the school’s Parent Teacher Student Association Facebook page (Schachter, 2011). At the same high school in California, teachers are using student’s cell phone texting skills in the classroom. Some teachers have set up connections through polleveryone.com where students can use their cell phone (or work with someone who has one) to answer anonymously to multiple choice questions posed by the teacher. This is a quick and free way for teachers to identify information that is being retained and information that needs to be re-learned.
At College View Elementary school in Iowa, first-graders are using Facebook to update and share photos, writings and videos with other classrooms, family members and districts. The teacher has the only sign-in privileges and has had the parents of every single student sign a permission slip that allows photos and for the parents who are not comfortable with their child being on Facebook, they have the option of not participating. According to Schachter (2011), most of the other classes in the elementary school have followed suit and share videos and postings.
Michael Smith, a superintendent in Illinois uses Google Dogs to allow collaborative work with other administrators. Google Docs allows users to share ideas add comments and the like. The students in a local high school are also using social networking sites for success. Students have recently begun creating videos of mock trials and other classroom exercises under their teachers’ supervision and uploading them to YouTube. Smith states, “We can’t afford to fly in an author to talk to students, but we can tweet him and ask questions. Or if you’re talking about the pyramids, the teacher can look up and choose from 18,000 personal videos from people’s vacations. It’s like a virtual field trip” (Schachter, 2011). Gone are the days of renting or checking out a VHS tape from the local library or school library and trying to listen and watch in between the scratches and black and white lines. We are now able to use YouTube and TeacherTube to pull real-life videos for our students to watch. We can now use these sites to upload classroom videos for feedback from other classes, schools and districts. The possibilities for learning are endless when you create a network of endless opportunity.
Still, another district administrator uses Twitter to announce anything from early releases to reminders of school applications. Bradford Saron said it best I think when he said “It’s sharing information for a young generation of parents whose primary means of receiving information is mobile” (Schachter, 2011). I believe that we are coming to the generations and times of technology where everyone is connected somehow through the internet, mobile devices and social networking sites. We can no longer force our students to learn the ways in which we used to. We must reach out and extend our hand in the direction that their future is going in order to better help them be ready for their tomorrow. We must continue to grow and learn much like we expect our students to, if we want to keep their interest, teach them about their future and help them plan to change the world tomorrow.
References:
Schachter, R. (2011). The social media dilemma. District Administration, 27 - 33. Retrieved from http://www.DistrictAdministration.com
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Raise your hand if your high school blocked “MySpace” when it first came out? Or had other sites that were “restricted”? My hand is up. Gone are the days of pencil and paper reports, of teachers sending home packets of information. These days, schools are taking leaps and bounds to get in touch with the school community and are using their resources to better meet the needs of the students’ social networking and parental needs. While not every school in every district allows and uses Facebook, Twitter and other social media, there are several who are paving the way for these internet tools to become useful and necessary in the classroom as a way to teach and to reach out to parents and community members.
Many schools are expanding their classrooms to the internet using Facebook and Twitter because they are free. Schools are using these sites as a means to communicate with parents, faculty, staff, students and other districts. As always, there are pros and cons to any tool the internet may provide us. David Cawthorne, a district technology director in the Weymouth Public Schools stated that Facebook is a good tool and engages kids “but from a district perspective, there are just too many uncertainties” (Schachter, 2011). The Weld Re-4 School District in Colorado prohibited social networking for educational or administrative purposes until last spring, citing “we define social medias as an Internet-based tool for sharing and discussing information among users” (Schachter, 2011). While there are continually going to be pros and cons to using media and internet-based tools in education, we must remember that there have always been pros and cons to teaching students, regardless of the media. Remember when you could only was G-rated movies in schools? They have since allowed PG-movies and in some schools PG-13 movies if parental signatures are acquired.
The Weld Re-4 School District is leading others into the Web 2.0 era by focusing on the connections that are possible through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as collaborative writing and editing tools such as Google Docs and Edmodo (Schachter, 2011). Michael Roe, a high school principal in California now uses Facebook to communicate daily with over 5,000 parents, students, teachers and staff members. He uses his page to post announcements, pictures and links to interesting videos. Roe shared that “within the first month, we had over 200 [parents] members” on the school’s Parent Teacher Student Association Facebook page (Schachter, 2011). At the same high school in California, teachers are using student’s cell phone texting skills in the classroom. Some teachers have set up connections through polleveryone.com where students can use their cell phone (or work with someone who has one) to answer anonymously to multiple choice questions posed by the teacher. This is a quick and free way for teachers to identify information that is being retained and information that needs to be re-learned.
At College View Elementary school in Iowa, first-graders are using Facebook to update and share photos, writings and videos with other classrooms, family members and districts. The teacher has the only sign-in privileges and has had the parents of every single student sign a permission slip that allows photos and for the parents who are not comfortable with their child being on Facebook, they have the option of not participating. According to Schachter (2011), most of the other classes in the elementary school have followed suit and share videos and postings.
Michael Smith, a superintendent in Illinois uses Google Dogs to allow collaborative work with other administrators. Google Docs allows users to share ideas add comments and the like. The students in a local high school are also using social networking sites for success. Students have recently begun creating videos of mock trials and other classroom exercises under their teachers’ supervision and uploading them to YouTube. Smith states, “We can’t afford to fly in an author to talk to students, but we can tweet him and ask questions. Or if you’re talking about the pyramids, the teacher can look up and choose from 18,000 personal videos from people’s vacations. It’s like a virtual field trip” (Schachter, 2011). Gone are the days of renting or checking out a VHS tape from the local library or school library and trying to listen and watch in between the scratches and black and white lines. We are now able to use YouTube and TeacherTube to pull real-life videos for our students to watch. We can now use these sites to upload classroom videos for feedback from other classes, schools and districts. The possibilities for learning are endless when you create a network of endless opportunity.
Still, another district administrator uses Twitter to announce anything from early releases to reminders of school applications. Bradford Saron said it best I think when he said “It’s sharing information for a young generation of parents whose primary means of receiving information is mobile” (Schachter, 2011). I believe that we are coming to the generations and times of technology where everyone is connected somehow through the internet, mobile devices and social networking sites. We can no longer force our students to learn the ways in which we used to. We must reach out and extend our hand in the direction that their future is going in order to better help them be ready for their tomorrow. We must continue to grow and learn much like we expect our students to, if we want to keep their interest, teach them about their future and help them plan to change the world tomorrow.
References:
Schachter, R. (2011). The social media dilemma. District Administration, 27 - 33. Retrieved from http://www.DistrictAdministration.com
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