Social Networking and Teachers

Social Networking may be one of the biggest internet trends in the last few years, but while students flock to it in droves, it's educational potential still remains questionable and in need of investigation. However, we have been hearing reports of school districts being uncomfortable with their teachers signing up for sites such as MySpace or Facebook, as many places (not just Alberta) have legislation and/or professional codes of conduct that seek to regulate the public behaviour of teachers in and out of school. This article, came to us from Eschoolnews.com, via Twitter and MyLearningSpace, and centres around the problem of social networks allowing for the overlapping of a teacher's public and private behaviour.

Dr. Sharon Friesen

A few weeks ago, Dr. Sharon Friesen from the University of Calgary, came to visit the Instructional Services staff and talk about the need for educational reform. Many of Friesen's talking points involved moving the educational system away from the assembly line model that was developed (primarily in the United States) at the turn of the last century. In this model, students are viewed as products that have particular forms of knowledge imprinted (or processed) on them. Quality control measures governing the success of the imprinting, can result in the passing or failing of students. Some of these issues we discussed in an earlier post (The Song Remains the Same), and had even begun exploring in a somewhat abortive wiki-venture, Beware The Octopus. While we enjoyed Dr. Friesen's talk, her's is just one voice in an ever-growing chorus highlighting the need for many multi-faceted changes to our school systems.

Dr. Friesen is also the co-founed of the Galileo Educational Network, an organization that has done some great work in Calgary promoting more inquiry in schools.

Video conferencing

Today we are takig part in a Regional Lead Network workshop on video conferencing and online desktop sharing (great for having students do collaborative work). Several companies such as Polycom, Webex, and Smart offer different formats and platforms. As with our recent visit to Smart HQ with some Dutch teachers, we are very eager to explore the opportunities this software presents, especially when used in conjunction with interactive whiteboards or student laptops.