Manaiakalani Staff Meeting Reflection T4/18

Do your learners know the process of learn, create, share?
My learners are totally immersed in the learn, create share process as they are 1:1 iPads, work from their class site, have begun posting to their own blogs. I need to use the language more with the students. 

Do your parents/community know the process of learn, create, share?
Yes our class site is open to the public and has been shared with parents. There was an issue with attendance to our school hui about Manaiakalani. We will be having another hui this term with Year 3 students and their parents to discuss chromebook purchases for next year.

Is this visible on your school site/class site/class blog?
Yes, students use our class site to access their WALTs and activities for each week. This is a work in progress and more is needed in terms of digital learning activity development on my site.

What are your ‘next steps’ for 2019 to improve visibility of LEARN CREATE SHARE in your class?
Make sure my class site is set up from week 1 in Term 1 and shared with parents. Use the learn, create, share language more with the students and explicitly teach these.

How can I, as a facilitator support you to enable visible Learn, Create, Share in your class?

Continue with teaching myself and students to blog and comment in others' blogs. Lessons on how to specifically teach the learn, create, share pedagogy - Demonstrating what these mean? How do you explain them to a junior/middle class? Overall lesson ideas etc...

Week 29 / Professional Online Social Networks

Step 1 (Descriptive): 

My current use of social media for professional development includes the use of Facebook, google apps such as docs, slides and hangouts (live casting),  google+, blogger, youtube and Pinterest. I use these social media platforms to discuss and share ideas and new learning with other professionals as well as gaining new ideas from others to inform my teaching practice and professional skills. I am a confident user of these tools and find them extremely helpful. 

Step 2 (Comparative): 

After viewing the survey completed by fellow educators about what social media they use in professional development (shown below), I can clearly see the most popular networks used include Facebook & google+ communities (PLN & Social Forums), blogs and videos. These are platforms I also use and am familiar with. Twitter also features quite highly. This is a platform I have an account for but very rarely use. 

After reading the book "What connected educators do differently" by Whitaker, Zoul & Casas (2015), I can see the many benefits twitter offers and how this can be used effectively to grow ones professional learning network (PLN). They recommend the practical strategies "Follow 5" - meaning follow and interact with 5 educators who they suggest are exemplary connected educators; "Find 5" - referring to looking at the 5 resources/tools they recommend for growing your PLN; and "Take 5" - encouraging educators to take part in their 5 steps to get started with becoming a connected educator. Whitaker et al. (2015) conclude that it is time for educators to take responsibility for their own professional learning by creating and participating in PLNs and connecting with like minded educators to enhance their teaching practice. It also enables professionals to learn at their own pace and preferred learning style (Melhuish, 2013). I personally enjoy learning using a combination of literature, conversations and video content which was not available when I was at school. I found school a struggle and information technology was not something that was readily available.      

Step 3 (Critical Reflection): 

The implications for using social media in my own professional development are that it enables me to connect with like minded individuals that is not possible without technology, it allows me to grow as a professional and know that I am not alone with the various challenges I face as an educator. It also gives me the opportunity to take charge of my own learning to be the best that I can be - breaking down barriers and fulfilling my wants and needs as a professional. I do however need to be quite selective and critical with the information I choose to accept. Melhuish (2013) points out that the downside to social media is the lack of quality control and fact that anyone can comment and share information - which is not necessarily theory driven or proven to be helpful in any way.  

This reflective process has highlighted the impact social networking has on my professional development. I was so used to social networking being 'just something I did' without actually realising the important role it had with growing my professional practice. This has made me aware that others can also learn from myself and gets me thinking about how what I post will help other educators.  

This reflection was constructed using Jay and Johnson's  (2002) reflective model.

References:

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002) Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han…

Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What connected educators do differently. New York, NY: Routledge.

Week 28 / Influence of Law & Ethics in Practice

What:

Cyberbullying is an issue I have been involved in at a previous school I worked in and although both students were not in my class I was the first to become aware of the situation. Both students were using a social media platform called musical.ly which allows comments on people's videos. Both students participated in the cyberbullying and this led to parents becoming involved with one posting inappropriate comments about the other child on Facebook while also mentioning the school they attended in the post. I discovered the comments online and informed the classroom teacher and principal straight away. Both parents were called in for a meeting with the principal where the issues were mediated and resolved with the post being removed from Facebook. It was left to the parents to enforce consequences with their children.

So what:

As a result of this dilemma, I felt professionally obliged (professional ethics) to inform the school of the social media post as I knew this would have a huge impact on the students attending the school, their whanau, my fellow colleagues and the school. The parent who chose to post private information about another child was completely inappropriate and demonstrated that our community (society) needed to be more educated about their own digital citizenship. Being posted to a public group in Facebook, put this issue into a global context where the parent had breached the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 (Ministry of Education, 2016). This could have resulted in all sorts of legal issues. This situation also highlighted a need within our school context (institutional context) for more education around cyberbullying prevention for our students and how to keep ourselves safe online (Ehrich, Kimber, Millwater & Cranston, 2011).

Now what:

Had I chosen to ignore this situation both the teacher and principal would not have been prepared to deal with the event and parents could have felt the need to take matters further. I would have been ignoring my professional commitment to my learners, their whanau, society and my profession had I said nothing and 'minded my business'. As a practicing teacher under the Code of Ethics for Registered Teachers (Duty of Care value), I have a responsibility to my students, their whanau and my school to do good and minimise harm, which I believe I have done in this case (Education Council, 2017).

As a result of this situation, I have learnt that ethical dilemmas don't always arise in school and in this case social media was a major contributor to this dilemma occurring and being discovered. Cyberbullying is a dilemma I will highly likely have to deal with in the near future as I am about to have a class with one to one Chromebooks next year. The school has an internet agreement which all students sign at the beginning of the year and it clearly states that students will be suspended or banned from using devices at school if they are used inappropriately, however this scenario proves it doesn't have to occur at school to become a school issue.

This dilemma was analysed using Rolfe's Model of Reflection.

References:

Education Council. (2017). Our Code Our Standards.Retrieved from: https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Our%20Code%20Our%20Standards%20web%20booklet%20FINAL.pdf

Ehrich, L. C. , Kimber M., Millwater, J. & Cranston, N. (2011). Ethical dilemmas: a model to understand teacher practice, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17:2, 173-185, DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2011.539794

Ministry of Education. (2016). Managing Social Media Guidelines. Retrieved from: http://shapingeducation.govt.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/MoE-Managing-Social-Media-Guidelines_FA.pdf