Addressing Twitter concerns...

I am often asked about social media’s role in education, Twitter in particular. These questions are often brought about by parent concerns, which often mirror the initial concerns of teachers.

When addressing parent concerns I approach it just as I do with teachers:

1. concerns are normal
2. I’m happy we are discussing concerns as opposed to flat out rejecting the concept
3. concerns are a learning process for me as much as for those bringing them to me, as they help me reflect on my practice as well as see what I do through an external lens

I have written many things in the past about social media in schools but there are always new questions that aren’t addressed by old posts.

This post looks at the two most recent concerns I’ve received:

1. There is a time stamp if you follow it. One can piece together a class schedule.
2. Why are teachers stopping instruction to take photos?

Let me address each of these one at a time…

Tweeters @HeathcoteSchool!

I think it is important to promote, and celebrate colleagues. Especially when they step out of their comfort zone and embrace new challenges.

When I joined the staff at Heathcote Elementary School last year only a handful of teachers had Twitter accounts. And those that had accounts used them mostly for tweeting a picture of the whiteboard with the homework written on it.

When I interviewed for the job I expressed my passion for Twitter in schools and I was given full support by our principal, Ms. Stile, to push it as a school-wide initiative.

And my new colleagues were awesome. They jumped in full force.

Free apps for free apps...

Occasionally I will be posting things applicable to teachers as well as students and parents. Today is one of those days a post is applicable to everyone, and anyone, with an iPhone or iPad...

One of the best ways to get use to the wide variety of possibilities of the iPad is to take advantage of free apps.

Here are a few free apps that alert you to when other, paid apps, are on sale. Once you "purchase" an app, free or paid, you get all future updates for free too. So, if you find a $4.99 app has gone free one day, download it, it's free, and you'll get all future updates for free too. Any app is worth a test run if it doesn't cost you anything...

Twitter @Heathcote - Embracing social media & addressing concerns

I've written a few posts over the last week about how we will be using Twitter here at Heathcote.

• A primer
• Our hashtag

I also wanted to put up a post addressing the two most obvious sides of the same coin, the benefits and concerns.

Twitter @HeathcoteSchool - a primer

Twitter is a great resource. It is no longer just Ashton Kutcher talking about what he ate for breakfast (although, I'm sure there is probably still a lot of that going on).

These days teachers are using Twitter as another method of communicating with parents. There is a Heathcote School Twitter account that posts school announcements, shares classroom work, and in general acts as another way to connect the school with the community. A lot of parents have signed up for Twitter (its free) just to follow their child's classroom feed or the Heathcote School feed. There are many teachers who speak highly of the home-school connecting Twitter fosters and the instructional engagement it supports.

Social media at Heathcote

Yesterday at the faculty meeting I mentioned my love of social media in education.

I have written a few blog posts about how we used social media in my previous school. I will be writing new posts here, on HeathcoteTech, about best practices and the great successes of our social media use. In the meantime feel free to read some of the previous things I've written:

• Why tweet in Kindergarten? Ask @mariacamastro
• We tweet @PS10Brooklyn. A lot.
• Social media in our K-5 school
• My students do my tweeting
• Twitter @PS10Brooklyn - our hashtags

All of the above posts and more here: http://thecasalos.blogspot.com/search/label/twitter


Let me know if you have any questions. I'm excited to get all of Heathcote sharing our successes with the world and demystifying social media alongside our students....

Heathcote Network Update

As the 2014-2015 gets underway I wanted to give the Heathcote community a status update on technology, and when students will begin to access the resources (lab, Chromebooks, iPads, etc).

We are in the process of re-imaging and configuring all Mac desktops in the building, so that they all have the latest available software and access to printers. This process should be complete by Tuesday morning, if not Monday afternoon. Currently, students do not have access to their network accounts (district-wide). Typically, students are not allowed to log into their network account until they have been presented with the Acceptable Use Policy (which I will do) or for the youngest students, a lab orientation. This year there will be a slight delay in allowing student access, even after the AUP presentation, all in the name of progress.

In a nutshell, we (the entire elementary tech team, district-wide) are creating new student user accounts and we are re-organizing our network structure and management practices. Planning for this began last spring and was implemented through the summer. The traditional method of saving network files on a remote server and shuttling them back and forth between classroom, lab, and library computers had become outdated, and no longer supported by Apple. This setup became increasingly faulty as more and more students received login errors or had their connection crash, preventing them from saving their files. Moving forward is our best option and we are confident that these changes will result in more reliable network performance.

We are having a soft opening of the computer labs in the week of September 15. This is a week later than planned, but we need the time to hammer out final network issues. The soft opening will involve a handful of classes who are willing to take the new network setup for a test drive. If all goes well, we'll then roll out the lab calendar for open scheduling.

A great deal of planning, coordination, and technical effort have gone into a number of technology improvement projects over the last few months. Too much to write about in a single blog post. More details to come. 

Thank you for your patience and cooperation.