Keeping Students Safe

Dennen’s draft article provided a clear list of issues and solutions for the use of social media in the classroom. The passage on safety, particularly in the K-12 setting, made me wonder if I would have used social media when I was a high school health teacher. I don’t think I ever would have beyond it being used as a research tool. I do not think the school board would have supported me friending any of my students nor would they have been comfortable with a private group for the class. I did consider creating a FB group at one point, but I quickly realized how bad that could turn out for me. I would have to have had the approval of the administration so that at least one of them would have access to the account to monitor what was being discussed. Seeking this approval would have likely got the idea shut down, but going behind their backs would have posed even bigger problems had a complaint or issue come out of the group. I did ask students to use their own devices from time to time. Our administration encouraged us to make the student’s constant engagement with their phones to our advantage. I remember three lessons that they used their cell phones to look up information. Once was to find athletes who had suffered from a mental disorder, once to find athletes who had suffered abuse and a last time to explore the Truth.com website (an anti-cigarette use organization). Thinking back on it, this had the potential to cause them issues at home if their parents monitored their phone usage. It may have caused concern or been deemed inappropriate by their parents, depending on the content of the website. Not only did I have to be aware of the data usage students were incurring, I also had to do my best to make sure they were not on any sites with material that was beyond the appropriate and necessary level of the topic at hand. A simple search for sexual abuse in sport can bring up some sites that are not appropriate for the school setting or children. If the wifi had consistently worked in our classroom, the data issue would be nonexistent and a large number of the inappropriate sites would be blocked by the network. However, there were times when the wifi was working and it blocked websites that I had asked the students to access or websites that I needed to access for my lessons. Often times, YouTube would be blocked, so I would have to download videos on my home network to show them in class. While reading this article, I thought of another example of context collapse that I am sure must be an issue very frequently experienced by students living in the dorms. The school’s Wifi network is available to students living in the dorms and is used by them for both academic and personal use. Of course, this is a potential issue for any student using school property or the school wifi to access the internet, but more so for those that are connected to the network at all times, like those living on campus. At some point, off-campus students go home, giving them the option to access personal material through their home internet connection. Students living on campus are never off of the network, creating more restrictions to the material they are permitted to access and also reducing their freedom and privacy as anytime they are on the institution’s wifi, they have to abide by their guidelines. This means that the IT department has access to what websites they are accessing and for how long. It also means that they have less of a distinction between and control of their personal and academic life. I remember when I lived in the dorms during undergrad, a lot of students were caught illegally downloading music because they were doing it on the school server and their activity was being monitored.

Separating the Public from the Private

Elm’s (2009) concept of privacy issues sitting on a continuum with the poles being “public” and “private” is a good visualization of how we tend to separate our lives, specifically our social media lives. There are times when I direct message a friend (private), times when I post a picture to my profile (public) and times in between, for instance when I post something and give access to “friends only”. The problem is when I post something that I clearly want to be on one end or the other and it ends up being somewhere on that continuum. An example that always concerns me is uploading my pictures on the cloud. I do this as I have learned that backing up my precious memories on a hard drive does not guarantee they will be backed up. I have been disappointed by my computer many times, losing all of my pictures only to purchase a hard drive and experience the same heart ache when it crashed. So now I keep a hard back up and a cloud backup. I do always worry that my picture folders on the cloud may be hacked into and shared, resulting in my “private” becoming “public”. Dennen also talked about privacy rights in the US and EU. Having been in the EU for the last couple of months, I have had to accept a website’s use of cookies when I access it. Some sites give you a yes or no choice but others just provide a disclaimer that by using the website, you are automatically consenting to it. If you want the banner to go away, you have to click to accept. I do also like that a company has to keep their subscription lists up to date and to consistently check with their customers if they would like to stay on a mailing list (though I know this may have resulted in a lot of organizations losing customers when it was first put into play). I was really intrigued by the idea of “technology transience”. Up until now, I have often written about students needing to make sure to update their privacy settings when using social media tools. However, Dennen (2015) hits the nail on the head when she says that someone may not change their privacy settings to their desired level if they have never used the tool before. It is not until they use the tool or after they experience a security violation that they know what changes to make. I also appreciated the discussion on the BYOD. This is something I struggle with in the classroom and have had a mishap with in the workplace. In the classroom, it’s always a struggle of wanting to make sure my students aren’t distracted versus wanting them to use their laptops to further engage with the material. Also, by using their personal devices for school activities, they may not be experiencing context collapse per say, but there is a mixing of their two different “worlds” taking place. There is also more potential for their private to become public. For example, if student has multiple windows open, let’s say their iMessage chat with a friend, and has a class discussion board page open, they may accidentally respond to a classmate with a message intended for their friend. This happened to a colleague of mine that was using her work phone as her personal and private device. She accidentally sent a photo from her weekend to her boss instead of her friend, not paying attention to who she was responding to. Lucky for her, it was not anything inappropriate. The mixing of school and work with private accounts and on private devices further blurs the continuum and also increases the chances of something on one pole shifting to the other pole with just one click.

To Force or Not to Force

Dennen & Burner’s (2017) article supports our previous readings on context collapse. After reading the material in this class, one thing I have consistently found to be useful advice is that students should create a separate Facebook account for their class. Though I, myself, have not done this in the classes I have taken, it would eliminate my concerns of someone accidentally seeing something I do not want them to. Another takeaway from this article is the adjustment of privacy settings. If students do not want to create another account, they can adjust their settings to prevent people from their class from seeing their personal information. They may also want to consider changing their profile picture (assuming they have limited the access of other areas of their profile) as I have come across some pictures that might be appropriate for friends but not so much for the classroom setting. Though I do have Facebook, I do sympathize with the students that said they did not have Facebook for specific reasons and were not too keen on creating one for class. I know many people who have been victims of stalking, have been contacted by those they do not want to or who just simply want to avoid the time and energy loss that many Facebook users experience. I did tend to agree with the student comments about it not being necessary to use social media accounts to connect with classmates and professors. I do like to use social media in my courses, but more so my students are engaged and so they learn to better use tools that they will likely have to use in the workplace or so they have the knowledge and experience to use these tools to effectively and creatively present information. I do not see why Facebook would have to be used in the classroom for engagement between those in the class. This is what Canvas is for. I do think students can be asked to use Facebook as a place to gather information for an assignment. One of my concerns with implementing Snapchat in my class is that not everyone will have it and though I think it is a tool that may give them an advantage in the workplace, I do not like the idea of forcing them to sign up for an account. The only time I really see the necessity of this is in a class like EME 6414, where the intention and focus is on how to use social media tools because without using the tools, you will have limited knowledge about them. This is why I have decided to split the class into a user group and non-user group, giving them a choice as to which group they would like to be in. I think this will not only enhance my research for a paper I’m writing about social media use in sport management classrooms but will also avoid the complaints from student who do not want to participate.

The Internet is the New Neighbor & the New Teacher

Rainie & Wellman’s (2012) explanation of the neighborhood and neighbors no longer carrying as much importance in people’s lives hit a topic that seems to be a recently reoccurring in discussions around me. A friend of mine posted an article on Facebook about how social media has led to a group of “indoor generation” kids that no longer go outside to play with the other neighborhood kids and instead play video games with kids in other cities, states and countries. Just last week, I had a discussion with a classmate about how no one knows their neighbors anymore. I do think that may be partly due to the internet now allowing us to exercise our social skills with others we may already know or meet. However, I also think that now that we can look up places to eat in the neighborhood, where the best markets are and how to get to the local park, people may not be relying on their neighbors for advice. Though neighbors do talk about more than just local hot spots, I do recall my mother often asking the neighbors where x was or y was when we would move to a new neighborhood. I do not think social media takes the full blame though because I do not think that people have replaced going to meet the new neighbors with anything else. It’s not like neighbors send you a welcome email (unless maybe moving into a development or country club area). They simply just do not come over and introduce themselves anymore. I think that everyone being so busy and working so much has a lot to do with it. When most people get home from work, they just want to go inside and relax and find entertainment and conversation at your fingertips. I also personally like to communicate via text more often than not. It allows me to respond when I feel like it and also gives me time to think about my responses more before “speaking”. I also agree with the authors that the internet as further enhanced and extended ties for many who know how to navigate the social media/internet world. As someone who has traveled a lot for work, school and pleasure, I have met a lot of people along the way. Some I have kept closer than others, but I have kept in contact with them all to some degree and this has only been made possible by social media. If I had to make a phone call, write an email or send a letter to all of them to keep in contact, I would not have time to do anything else. Even if I do not message them ever, even a like or comment under their photo keeps me in their memory and bridges the gap between when I last saw them and when I reach out for an ask, to catch up to say hello. I also think that in some way, social media has made people more understanding of not having regular communication. My friends and family do not have to call me regularly and do not become worried about me if they haven’t heard from me. If they see me post a picture on my Facebook account they have some level of understanding that I’m ok or what I’m up to. The mass reach of social media also makes it easier to make sure you don’t miss telling someone about a big event in your life. I was also recently having a conversation with a professor about how the internet has changed the way instructors (should) teach. Now that students have access to all of the answers, it is important that we teach them to think critically and to use their skills to investigate the source of the answers, why they might say what they do, what other “right” answers might be, etc. I also agreed with their comment that people want more information and they want it quickly. It’s hard to have a conversation without Googling something. I think this is a positive advancement as it gives us the ability to know more about more. On the other hand, it can also have negative impact as now we no longer have to think towards an answer or even remember anything if we can just look it up.

Online Classes Aren’t Self Sufficient (Kim, Hong, Bonk & Lim, 2011)

My biggest take away from this article was that online classes cannot run themselves. Though I appreciate professors that are engaged in their online classes, I think that many will create the original course, set reminders for announcements and then let the course flow. As I said in my earlier blog post, I often give my students guidelines for an assignment then turn it over to them. Though the medium of the teaching in this article was for online classes, I could see the parallels in group work in the classroom. If you do not give the students within the group specific assignments, some would end up doing the work for all. The authors’ suggestion that group work should be graded by individual effort one that I go back and forth on. I tell my students that in the workplace that often times when a multi-staff project is required, the supervisor is looking for a completed project, at whatever costs it takes. An employee can take their complaints against a coworker to their supervisor, but often times nothing will happen. There are always employees that have to pick up the slack of others. I also do not want to promote this behavior but I also want students to have experience in these situations. I still believe that students should take the responsibility of delegating how the work should be divided. I think a good medium is for teachers to provide the tasks, then students should meet to decide who will do what task and then provide a document back to the instructor. This can also be implemented in their workplace in the future. This way the supervisor (instructor) will know who is responsible for what and if in the end the work is not completed, one specific person can be held accountable. I do not think that the instructor should be responsible for assigning specific step by step task in an undergraduate or higher course. The instructor can have regular check ins with the group to make sure they are on track and to smooth out any issues along the way.

Teachers Teaching Teachers (Goodyear, Casey & Kirk, 2014)

I was very intrigued by this article upon reading the abstract. Though I think it provided some very interesting findings and suggestions for the use of social media for physical educators, I thought that there were some gaps in the research. As a former physical education teacher, in order for me to change my practice was not an option. I was given a strict timeline that I had to follow that told me what pages to use in the textbook. We did have access to a discussion board and a website of approved lessons and games, but for me to incorporate other topics and activities, I had to just do it on my own. There is no way I could have gotten away with having it written down on a social media site as this could be used against me if I was found to have been “straying” from the curriculum. I do think the idea of using social media for continuing education/in-service and training. As a non-traditional teacher, I would have appreciated consistent and continuous access to a community of other non-traditional teachers for support and knowledge. If the school districts are comfortable with students fulfilling their physical and health education requirements online, I do not see why they do not think this type of education is adequate for the instructors (unless of course they just don’t care about the students’ education and don’t truly believe it is adequate). I did also like the suggestion of teachers having a connection to experts, but I do not think that this was adequately explored. I do not know who the expert would be in a real school setting. At the end the department becomes the facilitator, but I’m not sure who the department is. I gleaned that some of the facilitating happened organically, there was clearly someone specific running it. Would this be a department head? Whoever it was, it would add another responsibility to their job description and we all know that teachers are likely not getting pay raises anytime soon (but more work, yes). I think that there are benefits associated with teachers learning from each other, but this CoP could be an opportunity for those in academia to connect with practitioners. I am very discouraged when I think about all of the research that is being conducted and all of the amazing findings coming out of it that no one is reading or that are not being put into use. This would be a great opportunity to bridge this gap.  I was also confused by the author’s differentiation between social media and Web 2.0 tools. They said that social media would “become a thing of the past” but I do not understand how it is different than Web 2.0 tools. The article did point out a very important function of this CoP; support. The use of retweets or the sharing of tweets as a reinforcement for the original poster is a positive outcome of social media groups. The concept of social competence is very important when someone is trying something new. As a current PhD student, I sometimes experience imposter’s syndrome but then when I go to conferences and present my research to other scholars in the field, I get some of that confidence back and am reminded that I do know what I’m talking about. It is also very encouraging to have an idea and to see that it is working for someone else and that your work is helping others. People need that pat on the back, even it is just through a simple retweet or comment. Of course, another issue that may arise with sharing ideas and materials in this type of online community is that some may be carrying the weight of the whole group or some people may not be prosuming and instead just consuming. People have to give and take, not just take as this may cause conflict and become discouraging to those teachers that are always providing knowledge but never receiving any.

Doing More Than Making Lists (Dennen – Networked Knowledge Activities Draft)

Considering our topic of ownership from Week 3, I wondered what the risks of blogging about this article and others that are drafts, in press or not published. That aside, I really connected with Dennen’s comment that students struggle with taking control over their learning. I know this was not the main focus of the article, but to me, it was what I kept thinking about while reading it. I have always tried to implement activities that encourage students to learn from each other. My go to activity is to split the class into groups and have them research a topic and then present it to the class and I act as the mediator, keep the class on track, add things they may have missed and clarify/correct anything they may have not gotten quite right. I figure that this is just as good as me teaching and if nothing else, at least each group has learned at least one thing (the item they researched) that class period. I often hear complaints the first few times when they are asked to do this, but then they get the hang of it. I hear them say comments like “you are the teacher, not us” or “I don’t know this stuff, that’s why I’m taking the class”. I attribute it to them being used to the structure of most of their education prior to this. They are used to just being fed information. I purposely give them vague instructions and tell them that in the “real world” their boss is not going to give them step by step detailed instructions and part of working (learning) is figuring things out along the way. It’s almost as if they are scared to be creative and to think outside the box. As Dennen says, they want to provide the “right answer” as if it is as simple as 2+2 and that there is only one correct response. I try to give them examples from my own work experience that show that my employer valued my creativity and critical thinking and preferred it over cut and dry projects. With the internet providing us with an answer to just about everything, it is important for them to bring something to the table that someone can’t simply look up. Of the six core networked knowledge activities, I most identified with being a collector and curator. I’m really great at finding articles and organizing them, but I rarely read them. I know that my collecting comes out in my teaching as I am always giving my students links to sites and articles to read, but I want to challenge their sharing, brokering and negotiating skills more. I have seen a lot of projects go awry because of no or lack of communication.  I have also noticed that when I give my students list of information, they are often not successful at synthesizing it or responding to it. I have never been one to implement discussion boards in my class because as a student myself, I do not enjoy them. I find them to be tedious and often do not put the effort I should into them. I understand that in an online class, this is the most common way to achieve communication, but I have tried to think of other ways to encourage this interaction. For group projects, I have the students create a living document on Google Drive. There they keep their notes and track the updates and changes they make to their final document. I tell them that if they are going to make a major change on the document, they need to include a comment as to why they thought this should happen. They also have to summarize the minor changes they made. I am not sure if Canvas allows videos to be uploaded in discussion boards, but I think this would also be a more attractive way to implement them into my class. This is what I plan to do with Snapchat in the fall. I would like students to respond to each other online, but as if they are having a face-to-face conversation with one another. I do want to include an activity that requires them to share information with one another, similar to how we shared an article of our own during week 4. Seeing the table of the six core activities and their associated actions really made it clear as to how I can achieve some of the learning objectives in my class and how some of the things I assumed were reaching these objectives were actually not.