 |
| Social Media Design |
I personally went to a small school from Kindergarden until 12th grade located in San Diego, California. My school, La Jolla Country Day School, has an extremely specific and strict guideline in regards to it's Social Media Policy.
Although teachers are allowed to have Facebook and similar profiles, it is against the school's guidelines for said teacher to accept "Friend Requests" from students until they are alumni and over the age of 21. On these personal profiles, teachers may not post information regarding the school's students, development plans, policies, inventions, strategies, finances, personnel, products, or services without the school's permission and approval.
The use of social media on these personal profiles must comply at all times with the School's policies against unlawful harassment and discrimination. Consistent with these polices, teachers should not participate in communications in a manner that unlawfully harass or discriminate against another person based on that individual's race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by state, federal or local law.
The School's logo, letterhead, name, or any other of its intellectual property when communicating through social media without the express permission and approval of the School. It is crucial for said teacher to remain aware at all times that postings, communications, and other content transmitted on social media sites are not private.
Given advances in technology, opinions, comments, or content will remain public, and will be archived, stored, and retrievable, indefinitely. Said teacher should consider how any communications might be perceived or what might happen if a posting or statement becomes known by third parties or is more widely shared or distributed than what they initially intended.
The teacher should also consider how it may reflect on the person or the School or its students. Students may only be emailed by teachers through the school's email systems and teachers may under no circumstances use their personal email address to contact a student. All School-related social media groups (such as clubs and teams) must be sponsored and monitored by a current School employee.
The following content may not be posted on any form of Social Media:
- Profanity
- Non-constructive derogatory comments
- Sexually explicit language or images that are not related to coursework
- Anything that is illegal, harassing, harmful to reputation, hateful, racist, or otherwise objectionable, including without limitation comments regarding fraud, academic dishonesty, or other unethical behavior by a student or teachers
- Personal information, including phone numbers and email addresses of others
Although there are many rules that a teacher must follow on Social Media, I find the tool to be extremely useful. Below is a fun video that shows how it can specifically be used in the first grade classroom!
Here is a link for other ideas on using Social Media, specifically in the classroom:
Other Teaching Blogs
References
Social media design. (n.d) Retrieved from http://shannonoyler.com/tag/social-media-icons-with-pinterest/
La jolla country day school. Retrieved from http://ljcds.org
