Journal 1

“Social Networking for the K-12 Set” by Jim Klein
Learning & Leading with Technology, February 2008

Technology leaders in education are always looking for ways to make communication and collaboration easier and smoother for students and educators at the K through 12th grade level. While the free flow of ideas, information and resources are out there, their dissimilarity, expense, complexity, and absence of standardized and centralized solutions factor as some of the reasons they have not been more utilized by these groups.

With this void as the catalyst for finding easier solutions for Social Networking, the Saugus Unified School District built Teacher and Student Community sites called “learning landscapes,” to assist students and educators in communicating, collaborating on projects, sharing content, and learning and developing among both themselves and the greater community. Because the main problem with most networking tools is that they lack the control and accountability required by school districts and staff, the SUSD team sought to use social networking tools and look at open source options to devise simple and inexpensive Community sites; an “ideal solution to a complex problem,” (p. 13).

Access controls on the system allow for supervision, review, and approval on comments, content, and data by teachers and staff before being posted for public view. This, along with the ability by teachers to manage their students’ passwords and lists, greatly reduces the need for management and oversight by IT staff. Besides these sophisticated access controls, other possibilities include a variety of blogging tools, secure file storage and sharing capabilities, and the availability of RSS and pod-casting. Technical barriers are being eliminated and new platforms and avenues have been laid out by SUSD for collaboration and communication between and among their teachers, students, support staff, whole departments, parents, friends and the entire world.

How would this affect my use of technology in my classroom?

Some of us are stuck in the dinosaur age of technology. Yet, the sizes of our classrooms, responsibilities, expectations of us as educators in this modern age are evolving by leaps and bounds. I struggle to keep up with content, let alone learning how to use technology. So, the idea of being creative and collaborating with colleagues and students within a safe and comfortable environment like the Community sites described would be very welcoming and inviting for someone with my limited technical background. This is cutting-edge technology that would not intimidate even me!

How would I convince my school district to look into a program like SUSD’s?

I would start by showing the this article which describes the affordability and ease of development, ease of use, networking and collaboration possibilities, appeal to apprehensive users (like me), and the great benefits to students (including both academic and technological). I would form a committee of colleagues and other educators and “spread the word” on the affordability and availability of using social networking tools and open source options to devise simple and inexpensive Community sites like those at SUSD. Finally a representative would make a convincing presentation to the school district hopefully with a positive outcome.