21st Century Learning and the Standards of Practice

According to the OCT Advisory Committee on Social Media, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that teachers’ off-duty conduct, even when not directly related to students, is relevant to their suitability to teach. Members should maintain a sense of professionalism at all times – in their personal and professional lives. Many teachers model appropriate use of social media and technology for their students before they assign a task to be completed online. Our credibility would be questioned if we say and demonstrate certain behaviors in class and do the opposite outside of class.

Although we would like to believe that we are entitled to say and do whatever we would like on social media, we as teachers are held to a much higher moral standard by the public. Parents do care about what teachers are doing when they are not teaching. 

Being held accountable for our actions outside of school also makes us vulnerable to having our messages being misconstrued. Even an innocent joke, or a night out with friends could come into question or be manipulated toward a negative intention. One of the purposes of the Ethical Standards for the Teaching Profession is to promote public trust and confidence in the teaching profession. In addition, teachers are also expected to maintain a high degree of integrity by reflecting their commitments and responsibilities to their work.

Today it’s more important than ever to maintain and demonstrate the Ethical Standards and Standards of Practice for teachers. Anything with say or do can be easily misconstrued using videos and text to implicate negative intentions. However, it is also more important than ever to embrace and utilize technology and social media in our schools. With proper Care, Integrity, and Commitment to Students and Student Learning, the benefits of 21^st Learning definitely outweigh any risks.

 

Social Media Strategies

Using twitter, Facebook, and Instagram may not be new for some of my students, but learning how to use these sites effectively and safely in our classroom may be new to most of us.  Like other new concepts and topics, I could approach employing these sites with my students using the gradual release of responsibility. What differs is that their responses and posts could have a digital footprint that lasts forever.  As a teacher I want to ensure that safety, respect, and responsibility are embedded in every social media lesson we engage in.

The components of the gradual release of responsibility paradigm include teacher modelling for students, guiding students, and gradual independent work.  I would model examples of appropriate posts and ways of responding. There are so many examples in the media about celebrities making inappropriate tweets. As recently as this morning, Madonna posted a racial slur when referring to a picture of her son. Later she appeared unremorseful when she ‘apologized’ for her comments.  Juan Pablo from The Bachelor (– no I don’t watch it so I probably got his name wrong) made remarks about gay and lesbians not being able to participate on The Bachelor and now the network and show are doing major damage control. In the classroom, we can’t hire specialized firms to help us take back our words.

Stories like those above would be great ‘hooks’ for my students and lead to great discussion about digital citizenship. (Of course I would also include more fulsome and newsworthy stories). From here I would engage the students in creating success criteria and anchor charts for appropriate and acceptable posts. I would guide them with the use of sites specifically created for schools. Gradually, with more guidance and evidence of their appropriate use and posts, I would introduce the more popular media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

With the use of appropriate strategies, social media can be another great tool we employ in our classrooms. After writing this reflection, it seems that implementing social media in our classrooms is not so different than teaching strategies for literacy and numeracy. Imagine not giving students the strategies and guidance needed for writing an autobiography, or working in a Science lab. Wouldn’t that lead to disaster too?

How is the role of the teacher and learner changing in the 21st Century?

Early in my career, the notion that all teachers are literacy teachers was an important factor in how the curriculum was delivered. This meant that math teachers, science teachers, and physical education teachers all shared the responsibility of developing students’ literacy skills. It was not solely the responsibility of the Language Arts or English teacher. More recently, I discovered a similar notion about being literate in the 21st Century when I was watching a lecture on TedTalks.   The speaker said that being literate in the 21st century means that not only can one read and write, but one must be able to use computer technology or be computer literate. This notion made me stop and rethink about all the new technology such as iPhone, smart TVs, gaming systems, and aps that I was shunning and not buying into. It was hard to keep up with all the upgrades and changes, not to mention trying to keep up financially with all the new things we all wanted.  I wasn’t going to be fooled into thinking I needed all this new technology. It was too hard to keep up! But that quote from TedTalks about what it meant to be literate in the 21st Century changed my approach because I didn’t want to be illiterate.  Learning the technology and all the new aps and social media meant that I was keeping up not with the hype, but with my role as a teacher and learner in the 21st century. It also meant that I could keep up as an informed parent about what my kids would be doing with their friends online, and with their future school assignments. Are the teacher and learner two different people? Are we to assume that our students are the learners? That’s not always the case. But for the purpose of this reflection I will say that our students, along with their parents, share a huge responsibility and role in making technology and social media successful in our school system. Becoming a global citizen, a critical thinker, a reflective online writer are the skills needed for the 21st century, and I’m learning along with my own children and with my students.

Thanks for visiting my Blog for Learning

I've created this blog to learn how to integrate more technology into my classroom and school library. I am a very private person so this is a little out of my comfort zone. That's a good thing because I also need to stay connected to my colleagues and friends. My biggest fear is posting something out of frustration that could come back to haunt be.