Recent efforts to gain perspective before pursuing an SMLP policy initiative
have been fruitful. In the twenty days since this blog's last post,
time has been spent in meetings with a variety of professional educators
who have offered valuable insights. Those who shared knowledge of their
early investments in social media are encouraging enough to support
policy reform. News like this, applied to lessons learned from the
proceeding curriculum development, reveals three possible strategies in which all can collaboratively intervene. Each of these is based on one of the points discussed earlier: policy, education, and treatment.
The
process for changing words on official papers to new ones based on the
SMLP's core principals is formal. The district school committee is the
final check on any policy changes and appearing before them is a must.
The decision to be made is, just how bold should the initial requests
be? All evidence to this date suggests the most productive thing to do
is amend current rules that prohibit student use of personal electronic
devices. Other schools have enjoyed success after taking this approach
and Medford High School is prepared to do the same. From there, many
novel situations will present themselves and require further legislative
acts so everyone will be encouraged to learn more. Both are good things
leading to education and treatment.
Education is buoyed by the SMLP's previously conducted curriculum development. The focus on our student-teacher
relationship in a classroom setting provides sufficient material for
any teacher who wishes to implement Social Media as a curricular
enhancement or as a focus in itself. Faculty as well as many in all
grade levels have expressed a desire to learn more and incentives exist
for both sides of the relationship. Teachers can gain Professional
Development Points as part of their contractual obligations. Courses
already underway rely on educational tablet instruction and are perfect
for helping employees put Social Media in an academic context. As for
students, fulfilling graduation requirements becomes the incentive for
committing to collaborative development. Mandatory community service
hours are a significant resource and will be discussed more in future
posts.
The
final intervention attempts to treat the current condition of our new
educational tool. As it exists today, Social Media in the hands of a
mostly uneducated campus population is in disrepair. Our information
represents a tangible product of the lives we lead and early anecdotal
impressions, while showing many positive trends, are frequently
alarming. Of course the key word there is "anecdotal" but more thorough research
will be conducted soon. Identifying detrimental behavior is no easy
task but, as Medford High is increasingly viewed as a learning
environment, useful data can be generated.
Pursuing
these incentives over the months ahead will provide many opportunities.
Ideally, blog posts will be published with the same regularity as in
the internship's first two months and will detail novel situations as
they develop. While tempting, adhering to a calendar of scheduled goals
is restricting because the school's daily life is always in flux.
Instead, the SMLP will do its best to collaborate with a balanced
approach to each strategy. For up to date inquiries, do not hesitate to
ask.
