Week 30 – Activity 6 – Professional online social networks

1. What are potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities? Why?

Cyber bullying has been in the news again this week. Increasingly we are seeing people say, do and write things they would never do to another person's face. Some young people are becoming more and more desensitised with the language they write and don't hold back. Education is the key to cyber bullying. Schools need to be on top of it and parents need to be aware of what their children are doing. Schools and parents have to have rules and guidelines in place. Students need to consider the consequences of their words and action and understand anything that is sent to anyone can be found. Even if it is deleted, it can be found and it becomes part of their digital footprint. Pearson identified skills that students needed for the future including, behaving responsibly on line, understanding privacy issues surrounding digital and online content and presenting themselves effectively in online social networking sites. (Pearson, 2013). These skills should be an important part of the digital citizenship that schools promote to students.

      2. How do/would you use social media to enhance your professional development?                   Why?

I have found FaceBook a useful and informal way  to keep in touch with other educators and their ideas. It provides links to articles and useful websites. The New Zealand primary school teacher's page is designed to offer advice and share ideas with other New Zealand primary school teachers. I use Facebook following on from professional development. Facebook pages of the pd facilitators are useful places to communicate with other educators about what is working for them and for keeping up to date with the presenter's latest updates and further ideas. Sheena Cameron's, Hilton Avery's Sharp Reading and Pam Hook's Facebook pages are all good examples that have helped me sustain the learning from the pd and keep the momentum moving forward.

 The Ministry of Education’s Virtual Learning Network is a good place to connect to forums in the New Zealand context.  Malhuish’s highlighted the value of a networked approach to professional development and sustainability in her thesis stating "there is a recognition that one teacher can't be everything to all those children in that one class, that one school cannot have that wide range of experiences that they may need to address the emerging trends, that it means that having a broader wider network can help people have those conversations and come to common understandings together." (Malhuish, 2013, p.139) The VLN groups that I belong to are the iPad group and the literacy group . I quickly skim the threads as they happen and will save them for future use if I feel they are going to be relevant to my practice. Coming from a country school with only 5 other teachers, it keeps me in touch with what is happening elsewhere in the country and enables me to not feel isolated or stagnate so it is important for me as an educator to make the time to engage with VLN and other social networks.

Joosten, T.( 2013. October 22). Pearson: Social Media for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/tjoosten/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-27456257?ref=http://professorjoosten.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/pearson-social-media-for-teaching-and.html 

Melhuish, K. (2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning.