SOCIAL MEDIA I FEATURE

Both school boards embrace new media trends

Upgrades keep both school boards on top of the times.

GAVIN ALBRECHT is a confirmed fan of social media. A mathematics teacher at WaterlooOxford District Secondary School in Baden, he began using it way back in September 2010 as a fast and effective communication tool with students outside the classroom. But it was the students who had put social media on his radar in the first place. “A couple of them came up to me and suggested that I use Facebook to post information about tests, assignments or other classroom information. It would, they said, be an effective way of communication, especially for kids who might be absent from class — away on field trips or sick.”

Things have changed today for both Albrecht and his students, but at the time, Facebook was the hot social media tool with teens. Most of them couldn’t wait to get out of the classroom to turn on their phones to check on who was posting status updates.

Albrecht liked the idea but knew that if he did take up the suggestion, online safety would be paramount. He’d also need to find out about the Waterloo Region District School Board’s stand on the use of social media in the schools.

At Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Cambridge, teacher Rolland Chidiac was developing a program for special education and classroom teachers. He was working on ways to maximize iPad technology as a learning tool for autistic students.

“I asked for input from my colleagues at school and in other Waterloo Region schools first, and I got a few ideas. But then I decided to go on Twitter and hopefully solicit more strategies from a broader range of teachers,” he says.

Chidiac got what he was looking for and more. Within hours of tweeting his request>>

>> in March 2012, he had dozens of responses from teachers across the country and into the U.S. “I soon realized what an awesome and almost instantaneous professional development tool Twitter was,” he says.

Since that time, Chidiac has built what he calls “a collegial group of Twitter educators” as far away as the British Isles. They regularly bounce teaching ideas off each other. “And we’re all, including our students, the richer for it,” he says.

Canadian boards of education have been cautious about jumping on the social media bandwagon. It wasn’t until 2011 that the Ontario College of Teachers issued its electronic and social media policy.

Acknowledging that social media can be “a powerful tool to enhance learning,” the regulatory body for public and Catholic teachers advised them to employ it “responsibly and ethically.” Educators must “exercise caution, act professionally at all times and model good behaviour and digital citizenship.”

A special advisory was directed toward use of Facebook in the schools. The college strongly advised teachers against “friending” with students.

Both the Waterloo Region District School Board and the Waterloo Catholic District School Board have been among the province’s leaders in inviting social media into the classroom. Both boards had begun to lay the foundations for its arrival even before the College of Teachers’ statement.

“We knew that social media was here to stay,” says Mark Carbone, chief information officer for the public board, “and school boards need to embrace it or be left behind.” Carbone has been the moving force behind the board’s social media “revolution.”

But integration of the powerful learning tool needed to be done “with care and caution, with the safety of students paramount and educators not putting themselves at professional risk,” Carbone stresses.

The board was already planning major technological upgrades. In 2010, the board began a three-year initiative to equip all of its schools with Wi-Fi technology. Wi-Fi allows computers and smartphones to connect wirelessly to the Internet.

This was followed by additional computers, laptops, the lightning-fast Chromebooks and iPads. The board’s aim was to have a one-to-six ratio of students to equipment.

Over the 2010-11 school year, the board pioneered The Futures Forum Project. The project was aimed at Grade 10 students taking English, civics and careers classes, with the goal of encouraging students to improve their abilities in written communication.

Integral to the project would be the use of a variety of social media Internet sites, including Facebook and Twitter. Blogging to develop the students’ “online voice” was also important.

Beginning with only eight pilot classes, The Futures Forum Project has now grown to include almost three dozen Grade 10 classrooms across the region. The Waterloo Catholic District School Board was climbing onto the social media train about the same time. John Shewchuck, the separate board’s chief managing officer, says: “Our board recognized this was happening, and we took steps to determine where social media could fit as a learning tool.” He calls the addition of social media to the curriculum “one tool in the learning toolbox.” The Catholic board’s 21st Century Teaching and Learning Blueprint set out guidelines for use of social media in the classroom. It included the use of “wikis, blogs, video conferencing, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other sites deemed appropriate by the classroom teacher in accordance with Ministry of Education curriculum.”

Like the public board, the separate board also brought in more computers, laptops and Chromebooks, with a proposed ratio of one computer to every four high school students and one to eight in elementary schools.

Taking technology one step further, the Catholic board also installed Bright Link screens in every classroom and library of their schools.

The technology virtually makes the traditional classroom blackboard obsolete. BrightLink technology allows any image from a computer screen to be displayed on a whiteboard or any flat surface. Teachers and students can interact with the projected image with the touch of an electronic pen.

“It was a major investment for us, with the future of education in mind,” says Shewchuk. He calls the board “one of the provincial leaders in the use of technology.”

English teachers, especially at the secondary level, have embraced social media as a teaching and communication tool. One is Andrew Bieronski of Huron Heights Secondary School. Huron Heights principal Ed Doadt, another social media fan, calls Bieronski a “savvy social media user.”

All of Bieronski’s Grade 10 students in his Futures Forum Project classroom are required to build a website as part of their curriculum. Here, students present their skills, interests and extra-curricular activities.

Bieronski calls these websites “portals to employment.” More than one of his >>

>> students has found part-time work because of their website. “Employers are impressed with what they’ve read, and they’ll hire the student on the strength of the website,” he says.

Social media has been key in encouraging students to write more, says Bieronski. Blogging has replaced journaling in the 21st century classroom. Even previously “journal-phobic” students enjoy the blogging experience.

“Authenticity” is at the core of blogging success for young people, says Bieronski. “Kids put their writing online, and there are no geographic boundaries as to who will read it.”

“Social media breaks down barriers and creates a sense of authenticity in kids’ writing.”

He notes too that students will often accept a critique of their work from a stranger better than from a parent or teacher. “When somebody you don’t know in Australia says, ‘Your ideas are good, but you need to check your facts better’ then they’ll do it without an attitude.”

But think again if you believe that blogging only happens in a secondary school classroom. An August 2012 story in the Waterloo Region Record profiled teacher Jessica Weber’s Grade 2 classroom at Blessed John Paul II Catholic School in Kitchener.

Weber explained that her students use the whiteboard and their electronic pen to blog stories. What makes the technology attractive to these beginning writers is they can make changes and corrections with the swipe of an electronic pen.

Twitter has also proved to be a powerful tool. Bieronski uses it as a followup to the popular online TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks that his students watch online. TED invites the world’s leading thinkers to offer ideas “worth sharing” in 18 minutes or less.

From primatologist Jane Goodall discussing What Separates Us from Chimpanzees, to Apple founder Steve Jobs giving advice on How to Live Before You Die, TED talks encourage students to listen, learn and contemplate.

Then it’s over to social media in the form of Twitter. Twitter allows classes across the region and across the world to connect electronically, sharing their reactions to the talks.

Although Waterloo Region’s two school boards have invested in new technology, the most common device for students to connect to social media in the classroom is their own smartphone.

Bieronski estimates that 99 per cent of students have their own smartphones. He adds that even those students from less-affluent families work at part-time jobs

“just to be able to buy and pay the monthly phone user fees.” Rural students are no exception. At Waterloo-Oxford, Albrecht sees an equal number of his students toting the ubiquitous smartphones. While their primary use is outside the classroom, Albrecht’s students also use them to keep up-to-date on news from their mathematics teacher. Having abandoned Facebook, Albrecht now uses a teacher mass-messaging site called Remind 101 to send general information to students. Individual communication is still by Twitter. Chidiac, now teaching at St. Anne Catholic School in Kitchener, says using social media can have unexpected outcomes. Having built up a Twitter network of educators when he was working on the iPad for Autism project, he kept them in the loop, tweeting about his school’s current initiatives.

One was Real Men Read, which brought male role-models into the classroom to read to students. At Queen’s Park, Jane Almeida, press secretary to then-premier Dalton McGuinty, read about the initiative and was intrigued.

“I got an unexpected call from Jane asking if the premier could come to the school to participate,” says Chidiac.

In early December 2012, McGuinty, his entourage and a full media complement arrived at the school. The premier was ushered to the school library where he read the story Born to Read by author Judy Sierra to a Grade 2 class.

Waterloo Region is ahead of many boards in Ontario and across Canada in their embrace of social media, say Carbone and Sewchuk. And both administrators believe our students are the richer for it.