How to appropriately use ICT in classrooms

Wankel, Laura A.; Blessinger, Patrick; Wankel, Charles (2012). Increasing Student Engagement and Retention using Online Learning Activities : Facebook, E-Portfolios and Other Social Networking Services. Retrieved from http://www.eblib.com

Facebook can be utilised effectively in the classroom, as it is a platform that students and teachers are often familiar with and closed group pages can be formed for collaboration and flexible engagement. There is a possibility of feedback and peer review of content created as a group also a great way to share the class work projects and findings with the wider community.

The POLT sections that can be addressed in Facebook use in the classroom setting:

1.2 The teacher promotes a culture of value and respect for individuals and their communities

This can be done by creating class values, creating a space where all voices are equal, and a safe and respectful environment where contributions and views are encouraged.

2.2 The teacher uses strategies that build skills required for productive collaboration

Having a collaborative space that is accessible from anywhere means students are not confined to the classroom for their learning. Students who are away can also contribute.

3.2 The teacher utilises a range of teaching strategies that support different ways of thinking and learning

3.3 The teacher builds on students' prior experiences, knowledge and skills

Many students already will be using Facebook if they are over 15, and it can extend their prior knowledge on how to use it as a collaborative space and not just a media consumption platform, they can contribute in a meaningful way.

3.4 The teacher capitalises on students' experience of a technology rich world and

Students can contribute to the group page with photos, text, links, video, audio which means there is an opportunity for differentiation in the way students learn and contribute while they are deepening their understanding, confidence and ability with technology, becoming creators not only consumers. It will be skills they can take into their other subjects and personal life skill set.

4.1 Teaching sequences promote sustained learning that builds over time & emphasises connections between ideas.

Having an ongoing blog style page means there is a record chronologically of the work posted and the development of ideas. In a subject like History, a time may be researched and interesting links and discovered findings shared communally, instead of individually, then the research that the group has done builds the group knowledge, so it is not all held by the teacher- information is brought forward by all. This provides a strong basis for then creating for example a video or podcast or ad on the findings for the time period they are studying. They are then able to share the projects.

4.6 The teacher uses strategies to foster imagination and creativity

There may be many ways to engage and encourage deeper learning that encourage creativity and innovation

6.2 The teacher plans for students to interact with local and broader communities

This could be creating a page with a school from another country or city around a project. To share cultural knowledge and creative ideas. This also means that collaboration and innovation are encouraged in a global sense.

6.3 The teacher uses technologies in ways that reflect professional and community practices

This is a very important one, and as a digital citizen, one that is helpful to be learnt at school, scaffolded by the teacher. Professional and community practises are reflective of what is used in the world outside of school for work and study, this puts some responsibility on the group to be harmonious, collegial, respectful, and self-monitoring. The teacher can also model good practice for Facebook use in the classroom and the wider world.

There however needs to be explicit guidelines for the students and teachers. One is that the students and teachers are not ‘friends’ on Facebook- they share a group space. Also the ITC policy of the school must be in place and general rights and code of conduct must be established, like no swearing, bullying, aggressive or hate language. The groups created must be closed, not open to the public, or ‘friends’.

Family Safety Centre suggests:

Tips for teachers

• Know your school’s policy on using social media in the classroom and comply.
• Use public pages for your classes to post homework assignments and other updates.
• Use groups to control membership and facilitate discussion.
• Be a role model as a good online citizen.
• Report inappropriate content to Facebook.

The final point has in some situations been found to be ineffective. As a PST one group member has reported content they found extremely violent and the response that came back after 24 hours was that it did not infringe on the community standards. It would be more effective to speak to the student directly about deleting comments, links, pictures, etc. There may be a process of moderation to be undertaken but by setting up ground rules that the students help define will hopefully help the students self-regulate and help each other.

Recommendations

In a situation like this, we believe that Grenville could implement a set of strategies to rectify, or resolve the situation that Miss Hawkins has found herself in. There are 3 important steps that the school could take to not only calm the situation, and make sure it doesn’t escalate into a further inappropriate state; but to also minimise the chance of it happening again.

Primarily, the school could hold a staff meeting with the entire cohort of teachers and present an information session on the importance of the correct use of personal social media. It is here that the school’s leadership team could drive home the importance of having teachers keep their social and personal media platforms as a private aspect of their social life. The school may in fact choose to put a policy in place where students and teachers are forbidden to interact on social media platforms.

Secondly, the school needs to have a private and personal meeting with Miss Hawkins to discuss the situation. It is clear from this that her behaviour was inappropriate and action must be taken. She needs to acquaint herself with the Code of Conduct of the teaching profession, remove herself from the party group and set her privacy settings strategically. Miss Hawkins also needs to be made aware that despite changing to more private settings, she needs to be careful with what she is posting on social media as there is no assurance that this information will stay confidential, she cannot ensure that the students will not find a way to access her profile. As such even personal profiles should be treated with a certain amount of apprehension when posting personal comments and images. As a teacher, she should not be posting anything that she thinks could compromise her job if made public.

By holding the meeting, and outlining the issues, as well as what actions need to be taken, Grenville High School is able to ensure that Miss Hawkins fully understands the situation. The school is able to inform her of their stance on the subject of, not only social media interaction with students, but the manner in which she did it.

Finally, and arguably one of the most important procedures in ensuring the situation is dealt with appropriately, the school should hold an information session or incursion on the theme of ‘safe partying’.

Due to the situation of party invitations, such as the rave Miss Hawkins RSVP’d to on Facebook, already circulating amongst students, it could be very beneficial and appropriate to educate students on how to take care in such social situations.

Whilst the responsibility rests with the teachers, students also need to be informed that it is not appropriate to seek to interact with teachers on social media.

The importance of considering all frameworks

It is interesting to note aspect 1.1 from the Principles of Teaching and Learning (POLT). This principle states a student learns best when teachers “build positive relationships through knowing and valuing each student”. Acknowledging this, some may argue that in this situation, Miss Hawkins is trying to adopt this principle by connecting with her students on a personal level through social media. At first glance, this could be entirely the case. However, contradicting to this principle, it is important to also note, not only Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s (AITSL) standard 4.5“Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically”, but also multiple principles retrieved from The Victorian Teaching Profession Code of Conduct. For example, aspects of principle 1.5 state that professional relationships may be violated for a number of reasons such as “attending parties or socialise with students”. In addition section 2; principle 2.1 (a) states that teachers must “be positive role models at school and in the community”. By applying much needed consideration to these points, it can be acknowledged that Miss Hawkins failed to implement them in her profession. It could be stated that she placed far too much importance on building positive relationships with her students and neglected other crucial aspects of successful educating.

The teacher did not demonstrate professional responsibility

Standard 7 of APST states that teachers must ‘engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community,’ relevant sections include; 7.1 and 7.2.

7.1 states that teachers need to ‘meet professional ethics and responsibilities,’ including to ‘understand and apply the key principles described in codes of ethics and conduct for the teaching profession’.

Considering the extent to which Miss Hawkins has violated the codes and ethics of conduct it is unlikely that she is familiar with them. The scenario creates a picture of a graduate teacher that is keen on doing a good job and genuinely trying to build a good rapport with her students, whilst creating an engaging curriculum. It is also clear that in her personal time the teacher enjoys attending parties and going to clubs. All of this is perfectly fine, how Miss Hawkins spends her personal time is just that, private. Where the issue has arisen is that Miss Hawkins has made her private activities public. Given all of the information that we know about the teacher we can assume that if she was properly educated on the principles she would most likely have taken the appropriate steps to avoid this situation.

7.2 states that teachers must ‘comply with legislative, administrative and organisational requirements’. Every school has policies in place as an attempt to avoid situations such as this. It is unlikely that through agreeing to attend the party, that Miss Hawkins has complied with the policies and requirements set out by the school.

The safety of students was not considered

Standard 4 of APST states that teachers must ‘Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments’. Of particular relevance is section 4.4 ‘Maintain student safety’.

This is the same sort of trust that you as an educator need to uphold. A variety of instances can occur when you are responsible for students. You also have a duty of care to worry about. Think about it this way, if your persona and the way a student perceives you changes, are you going to be able to uphold the professionalism they need to appropriately learn within their educational environment, or will you have breached that image and forever be someone they are trying to impress, just like their peers?

The sub-section “4.4” states that “Maintaining student safety [should include] strategies that support students’ wellbeing and safety working within school and/or system, curriculum and legislative requirements”. This is of interest as it explicitly states that teachers are responsible for making an environment within school safe for students, yet this scenario causes questions for how to interact outside of the school context. However, we still think that it is a relevant standard.

A safe school context or environment is something that is upheld by teachers based on the way that a student perceives them. There is a great level of trust that occurs with students and their teachers. Think about the first time that you walk into a new group of students. They all look at you with wonder about the type of person you are. Are you going to be strict? Are you going to be funny? Mostly, are you going to give them enough agency to be who they are while learning on their independent journey?

As an educator, your main role is to assist a student on their learning journey, and to make sure they feel that they can approach you in a respectable way at all times to gain the assistance that they may need. If you alter this, by attending social parties with students, you may be jeopardising the way that they learn throughout the course of you being their teacher. It is safer if you remain professional at all times, just as standard 1.5 of the Code of Conduct dictates, so that you’re standard 4 of the Australian Professional Standards of Teaching can be maintained.

The personal conduct of the teacher was inappropriate

VTPCC Principle 2.1 states that ‘the personal conduct of a teacher will have an impact on the professional standing of that teacher and on the profession as a whole’, also of relevance is part A.

Through agreeing to attend the party with the year 9 boys Miss Hawkins has put at risk, not only her own reputation, but also the reputation of the school and her colleagues. The actions of one teacher, no matter how independent they might be, reflects on the entire staff and the school as a whole. The actions of singular teachers also influence the way that the community views the entire profession as certain behaviours are often generalised.

It is also important that teachers interact professionally with students as their conduct in their personal time could dramatically impact the student’s view of them.  Teachers need to be able to maintain a rapport where the student understands that, whilst they can have a positive and friendly relationship with a teacher, the relationship must remain professional. If students begin to see their teachers as friends that they party with on the weekend it is unlikely that come Monday they will take the teacher seriously.

Part A of 2.1 states that it is expected that teachers will ‘be positive role models at school and in the community’.

Miss Hawkins has already proven herself an unfit role model through the images that she has chosen to post on social media of parties and clubs. 

She has then made that content available to her students and the general public, and agreed to attend an out of school event with two students which has been advertised as a ‘rave’. Add to this that the two students are only in year 9 and in all probability should not be attending this event at all. Miss Hawkins is not behaving as an appropriate role model if she is agreeing to attend a party, where there will most likely be drinking, with to underage students that are in a vulnerable position due to their age and susceptibility to inappropriate exposure.

The professional relationship was compromised

VTPCC Principle 1.5 states that: ‘teachers are always in a professional relationship with the students in their school, whether at school or not’, relevant sections include part A of Section 2: ‘a professional relationship may be compromised if a teacher:’

The relationship has become one of peers with similar interests rather than a representative of the school and the teaching profession with the attributed values, ethics and standards. Her professional relationship with the student and therefore the school and State have become compromised.

Considering this notion, that no matter where the teacher is communicating with a student they are always in a professional relationship, we feel as though Miss Hawkins should be visualising the situation as though it were not electronic, but occurring in reality. She could achieve this by asking herself the question “If these students approached me in person and asked if I wanted to go to a rave with them, would I say yes?”

As social media is still relatively new it is common for professionals to be unsure of how to manage their interactions on the platform, and they may even feel a slight disconnect from reality. In doing this exercise, imagining all interactions with students as those that occur in reality, it becomes much clearer where educators should draw the line and ensure that the interaction is professional. If Miss Hawkins did ask herself that question, she should have instantly been able to understand that it would not be appropriate to accept the invitation of these two students to join them in an environment that is entirely social, and where there could be sexual undertones and irresponsible consumption of substances such as alcohol. It is her responsibility to remain professional as the teacher and refrain from joining them in this situation.

Code of Conduct 1.5 provides a strong answer to this ethical issue. I think all educators should stop and visualise a situation happening in reality if electronic communication becomes hazy.

Part A, of Section 2 specifically mentions parties stating that the professional relationship between teacher and student will be compromised if a teacher ‘attends parties or socialises with students’.

Even if we go back to considering the idea of Miss Hawkins seeing the event on her own, as it is public, it is still her responsibility to check whether students will be attending, and if they are, to remove herself from the environment as to not violate the frameworks that have been laid out. By attending a party where students are present, with or without prior knowledge of their attendance, a teacher is compromising their professional relationship with the student.