Thinking Allowed.

Ian Shapira from The Washington Post has written an article this week describing how many young teachers in Washington DC have Facebook accounts that are publicly accessible and are filled with content that represents them in inappropriate ways. Essentially, they are being young adults, but in a way that they don’t realize is in the public domain.

It’s almost like Googling someone: Log on to Facebook. Join the Washington, D.C., network. Search the Web site for your favorite school system. And then watch the public profiles of 20-something teachers unfurl like gift wrap on the screen, revealing a sense of humor that can be overtly sarcastic or unintentionally unprofessional — or both.

The article goes on to ask whether teachers should be judged on their out-of-school lives if it doesn’t affect their effectiveness with students:

Do the risque pages matter if teacher performance is not hindered and if students, parents and school officials don’t see them? At what point are these young teachers judged by the standards for public officials?

In states including Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and Massachusetts, teachers have been removed or suspended for MySpace postings, and some teachers unions have begun warning members about racy personal Web sites. But as Facebook, with 70 million members, and other social networking sites continue to grow, scrutiny will no doubt spread locally.

Whether they “should” or not is a big discussion point, but whether they “will” or not really isn’t.

In today’s society where political correctness reigns and public scrutiny and “moral” standards are held in front of everyone’s face, there is no doubt that Washington DC will follow the other states in removing teachers for social networking behavior.

Do adults need to be re-taught what privacy means since it’s meaning has changed with the coming of the internet?

Do they know how to manage their own Facebook accounts - never mind teach students how to protect theirs?

Like several other teachers interviewed, Webster said she thought her page could be seen only by people she accepted as “friends.” But like those of many teachers on Facebook, Webster’s profile was accessible by the more than 525,000 members of the Washington, D.C., network. Anyone can join any geographic network.

Are young teachers in training ready to defend their Facebook profile in an interview?

“I know for a fact that when a superintendent in Missouri was interviewing potential teachers last year, he would ask, ‘Do you have a Facebook or MySpace page?’ ” said Todd Fuller, a spokesman for the Missouri State Teachers Association, which is warning members to clean up their pages. “If the candidate said yes, then the superintendent would say, ‘I’ve got my computer up right now. Let’s take a look.’ “

Ultimately, the lessons of cyber-safety and responsibility that we teach our students needs to be shared with our teachers too. It should be included in their professional training (along with learning to use web 2.0 tools to enhance education of course).

All students, no matter what future profession they go into, also need to see the importance of knowing what they share and how they share online. And what better way to model this for a teacher than to share the very impact it has on our own lives and how we are perceived through what we and others share online.

Too many believe that the rules of public behavior are abandoned in Facebook. Here’s a terrific video which makes this very clear. Thanks to Brian Lockwood for the link to this on Twitter.

It’s ETC time again.  This year the conference is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - my old stomping grounds.  Lived there 8 years, got married there, and 2 of my 3 kids were born there.  It’s going to be fun to be back.

At the conference I will be presenting the new literacy curriculum ideas that Justin and I started and blogged about in a 5 post appearance as guest bloggers on Dangerously Irrelevant and here (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) on Thinking Allowed.  This work in its initial phase was presented at the Learning 2.0 conference in Shanghai in September.

Since then, other great minds (not that our own were great) have contributed to refining it to an awesome starting point for an embedded technology curriculum that focuses on thinking rather than technology.  We have formed an ISB21 team to build it, support it, and enact it.   We still have work to do, but it’s coming along nicely.

Kim Cofino, from Always Learning is part of that team and will also be presenting in KL on “Developing the Global Student: Practical Ways to Infuse 21st Century Literacy in Your Classroom”.

If you are going to be in KL this weekend for the conference, I hope that you can swing by that session and my own workshop:

IT Curriculum 2.0, Session V, 11:45-12:45, Johore Room.

How does and information and technology curriculum stay relevant and meaningful in the 21st Century? In the face of exponentially changing times, old I.T. Scope and Sequences became outdated the moment they were printed. Schools need an embedded I.T. curriculum that ensures that the way students learn with technology agrees with the way they live with technology. It must focus on habits that provide students with opportunity to succeed not matter what their futures hold. This session shares a new model that speaks to these habits and makes 21st Century Learning accessible to teachers and students. Begin the conversation here and continue it at your schools.

Hope to see you there, if not at the workshop, perhaps at the pub!

Will Richardson suggests that we need to get educators on board with the read/write web, before we can really hope to make widespread change in education. I commented on his post (as the 100th commenter!!!) that while this is incredibly important, real change can also happen as we continue to engage students in this way.

Of course, a full faculty of web 2.0 fluent teachers is bound to lead to engaged student learners writing and collaborating online, but a growing student group trained in the power of the tools, versed in the possibilities of a world wide audience of readers, writers, and collaborators can also force change.

Secondly, Will also points out that those without a voice online are losing “credibility” with him. His reading is online, his network is online, and he learns online, so if you aren’t online, then do you have something of value? Will is a very smart man, which I’ve said before, but in this case I have to disagree or at least tread lightly. He takes an extreme position to make a point, but in truth there are a lot of educators who don’t blog, wiki, or twitter, but who do in fact engage kids and TEACH. And they get that these tools can be powerful learning devices.

To undersell that voice in a learning network that should include personal contact and professional learning opportunities at our own schools is to miss out on real voices positively influencing children.

On a final note, what I think about most about after reading Will’s post is what to do next?

Will is right…we need to get teachers on board. We need administrators who prioritize this alongside the other priorities of a school, rather than an add-on from the tech guys. But our voices are starting to echo in the spread out, but still small world of the edu-blogosphere.

We blog, therefore we buy-in (for the most part).

The big ideas are good. We agree to complain about the same issues.

Now it’s time to bust out of our discussion of those big ideas that we wonder why people aren’t doing…and start talking about how we are going make it happen.

• What are the best ways to get teachers on board?
• How can administrators be convinced of this need?
• How can curriculum be re-shaped without stepping on the toes of existing content curriculum?

We all agree…let’s start working on the ones who don’t.

Image: Change Direction by Phillie Casablanca, found at Flickr Creative Commons

(originally posted on harterlearning on Jan. 9, 2007)

Steve Hargadon: “Aha!” Moment on Adoption of Web 2.0 in the Classroom?:

“The light bulb went off for me. There is no way that teachers are going to be able to bring this technology into the classroom without support from the administration. So, the key would be to help the administrators experience the personal educational benefits from the read/write web technologies. And how would you do that? Maybe not providing them with just more information on the benefits of the read/write web, but actually providing them with some kind of training that actually helps them use these technologies in their jobs. They then would experience what happens, and can either promote or be more supportive of these technologies.”

Steve speaks of what it will take for technology to really be embraced and used in schools. He finishes the article with a little downside pessimism, but is he on to something here? Our administration is hoping that this is the case. Training the leadership team in not only what technologies are out there and can be used but also on what kind of teacher to recruit that will embrace these technologies are powerful forces that our Leadership Team supports. We are lucky that way, but Steve’s idea here can be the way to increased support and increased use by teachers. Ultimately, the leaders of a school set tone. This type of knowledge and understanding would definitely set the tone for technology use as well.