On the Threshold of Public Debunk Thugs Choose Violence

The "Expert" the group calling themselves "Citizens for Sound Academic Standards" has chosen to champion for them against Common Core, Dr. James Milgram, is an unstable man. Professors at Stanford report him as unprofessional, and dangerous. http://l.h4s.club/1BE0O0S
AND http://stanford.edu/~joboaler/


Currently, the FBI is looking into his possible use of children in a research project, possibly breaking the laws we have against using children in experiments.

At a Nevada Symposium, where Nevada educators were invited to debate with James Milgram, the teachers were met with violence. Propagandist have been quick to decry this claim by saying that the teachers were not invited to "speak" and that the symposium, despite the meaning of the word "symposium" was always intended to be a lecture instead.

This propaganda claim is shown to be exactly what it is -- a cover-up -- by the efforts of this propagandist group itself,  -- placing an ad on the Nevada Trends Website which expressly challenges the Nevada educators to a debate. And calling the Nevada Journal to tell them of this challenge back on the 7th

After researching this expert of theirs, however, who it appears was "asked to leave" the Validation of Common Core because of his unprofessional actions and disruptive behavior, the reports from those who have worked with him in the past, lead me to believe that it may have been a good thing that the Teachers of Nevada were not allowed to speak at the public debate -- No telling how this Milgram person may have reacted.

It is clear, however, that this group is not an education movement, they are thugs.

Pony Show Drops Its Mask. The Ugly Face of Propaganda

I've already read the Propagandist Cover up on this -- They are putting out the message that the Teachers were not invited to talk.. when in fact.. on Jan 07th, the Group that was organizing this made a really big deal about this being a discussion.

http://nevadajournal.com/2015/01/08/expert-critics-common-core-face-nde-officials-unique-public-events/

So then today, The Newsrelease is this:

Open/Edu Continues to Grow

Open Education Taking Whole Cities at a Time

Discouraged with the Texas State School Board, and their Indoctrination Curriculum, and the only available school books being erroneous (at best), El Paso schools knew they had to do something to protect their students. What? And How? were the issues though.

How could they supply, with the little budget they were given, materials, lessons and books for the whole city? Where would they get them? It really didn't look good. Even if they were willing to accept used books that were out of date, they couldn't find the quantity they needed in time. Then they discovered cK-12, an OpenEdu collective and repository. cK-12 supplied them with full curriculum, books, materials and a huge repository of lesson plans, all fully Core compliant. cK-12 also introduced them to the vast resources that OpenEdu could offer them, and showed them the level of development these resources offered.

No International Benchmark? No Valid Source of Credibility?

Is That what he told you?

The Movement for National Academic Standards: A Comparison of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in the USA and the National Curriculum in Australia
Watt, Michael, Oct 2-4, 2009 ERIC Number: ED506524
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED506524

Benchmarking standards against state, national and international standards, using a research-based process for decision making, reviewing successive drafts by stakeholders, and conducting an independent validation characterise the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Specifying plans and guidelines, inventing and refining standards, using a consensus-building process for decision making, and reviewing successive drafts by stakeholders characterise the national curriculum initiative in Australia.

Jason Zimba reports (in the New England Journal of Public Policy)
http://hub.mspnet.org/index.cfm/27851

... there were fifty-one people in the Mathematics Work Team, twenty-two people in the Mathematics Feedback Group, and twenty-nine people on the Validation Committee. The project lead for mathematics was William McCallum, a mathematician and University Distinguished Professor at the University of Arizona. Zimba himself is a Mathematical Physicist, or was at the time. So there is a lot of people involved with the math standards in 2009, all the way through 2011.

2007 Susan Pimentel started with the International Reading Association and published a book with them , "Teaching reading well: A synthesis of the International Reading Association's research on teacher preparation for reading instruction." This was basically her "understanding" being peer reviewed before she started with the project.
http://www.reading.org/Libraries/reports-and-standards/teaching_reading_well.pdf

And here I find that under the leadership of Dr. P. David Pearson, PhD, of the University of California at Berkeley,(Who is, by the way, the acknowledged, absolute authority on Comprehension -- how we learn stuff) the International Reading Association (IRA) created the Literacy Research Panel (LRP) to respond to critical literacy issues facing policymakers, school administrators, teacher educators, classroom teachers, parents and the general public. So not only are Coleman and Pimentel benchmarking, they've pulled together a large team of many levels and view points to make the standards.

And this is a fully Independent International Benchmarking of CCSS done without anyone knowing about it until it was over, by sneeky researchers at Michigan State.
Curricular Coherence and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics 
 William H. Schmidt1 Richard T. Houang11 Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 
  Educational Researcher November 2012 41: 294-308, 
doi: 10.3102/0013189X12464517 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER November 2012 vol. 41 no. 8 294-308 
http://edr.sagepub.com/content/41/8/294

As a point of Interest it is also listed as one of the most read documents in 2014 -- so it has been very deeply peer reviewed.
http://edr.sagepub.com/reports/most-read

What have I told you about listening to strangers? Check the Primary Source, not the idiot on stage.

Stress?

Common elementary math textbooks in the U.S. cover almost twice as many topics per grade as do Singapore’s. As a result, math textbooks in Singapore expect students to complete about one thorough lesson on a single topic per week, while U.S. students are expected to complete about one lesson on a narrowly focused topic each day.

Everyday stress after stress after stress.
                     -or-
Four High Stress Tests a Year

Hey, I'm still good with the Opt-Out.

In Singapore, schools use a national examination to identify upper elementary grade students who are having difficulty in math. Those students then receive
special instruction based on an adapted curriculum framework taught by trained Mathematics Support Teachers. Importantly, they also receive about 30 percent more math instruction than their peers so that they can cover the same rigorous content, only at a slower pace.

Common Core Demagoguery Has Breached

I really thought we were done with this. The ones to blame however are not the Republicans or the BATs -- but those who run CCSS, and the Dept of Education for not running an Education and Awareness campaign a year ago, or in October -- to educate the public about Common Core, what it is, what it isn't and remove the opposition's ability to just step back into the misinformation spewing.

What a year though, huh?

Teachers faced scrutiny in 2014 as never before, thanks to a landmark legal case dismantling teacher tenure in California, which sparked copycats lawsuits across the country. If you aren't familiar with this - it was a lawsuit brought against the school teachers/unions dealing with the Tenure of teachers which allowed bad teachers to not be identified and fired. Or at least that was the Press. The students felt that they were not given an education, which should have been expected. Yes, it should have been expected. When you have the high percent of students coming out of High School that we had, who had a diploma, but were not qualified to move on to college, it should be expected that one or nine of them are going to say, "Hey, WTF?"  And they sued for Failure to fulfill the expected obligations of an education system.

They won.  -- that, wasn't, actually expected...

Teachers on CCSS English

Find more Lessons, Activites and Information 

Who is this Diane Ravitch Person? And Why Do I Care?

Diane Ravitch is like the Rush Limbaugh of Education. She is very popular with the BATs (Badass Teacher's Association.... yes I know that the acronym should then be BTA.. but .. I guess it's a teacher thing). She blogs on the New York Times site. Not sure if she is paid for that or not, but she often has a new post there. Her bio says she "...is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development." More on her extensive background in Education can be found on Wikipedia

Ravitch was, from many accounts a highly motivated and active Educator. Her early books show sharp logic, informed views and enlightened foresight which very often prove to be true. Over the years, this changes and you can follow the changes through her prolific writing. Her vocabulary becomes harsher, her vision narrows and soon there are no stars in the sky, only black and white. There are now only two sides to an area which as become not simpler but more complex.

Honestly, I really wish the Ravitch who wrote The Great School Wars, New York City, 1805-1973 would step back up to the podium. But as she became sharper, her popularity grew, and more people listen to her now than ever before. But these are no longer the people who use to listen to her in years past. These are angry crowds who love her anger, not her once clear sight. Now she works for the think tanks. It is unfair to compare her to Rush, because she actually did something with her life, and doesn't get caught taking oxies in Florida. However, today she has no concern for any other view of reality than her own. I respect who she was, but I can't offer the same to who she is now. Not when the stakes are so high.

The Case for Annual Testing

By: Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, Martin R. West, Matthew M. Chingos and Mark Dynarski

The new U.S. Congress is moving post haste to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). With Republicans in the majority in both houses and the relevant committees chaired by individuals with considerable legislative skills (Lamar Alexander in the Senate and John Kline in the House) the smart money is on Obama seeing a bill in this session.

The most recent incarnation of ESEA, signed into law in January of 2002 by President George W. Bush, is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). NCLB is the seventh reauthorization of ESEA since 1965, which means that Congress historically reworked this legislation roughly every five years. We’re now 13 years into NCLB, so reauthorization is long overdue. It is not just the long delay that argues for congressional action, but the extent to which the Obama administration has replaced the provisions of the bill with its own set of priorities implemented through Race to the Top and state waivers. Whatever one thinks of the appropriate federal role in education, there are surely strong reasons in our constitutional democracy to prefer that we get to where we are going through law rather than executive edict.

This is really a good article, well researched, thoughtful and I learned quit a bit from it. I've been so busy with awareness that Common Core has no testing requirements, I've been a little derelict with whether standardized testing should be out there. Not sure I'm qualified to press it one way or the other.

Anyway , if it caught your attention at all, it won't waste your time. 

Teachers Are Disengaged from their Employment

This could be the answer to a question I've been trying to solve most of the day. According to a Gaulp Poll, Teachers are not engaged in their work, and even more, some are Actively disengaged.

• Just 30% of U.S. teachers are engaged in their work
• Actively disengaged teachers average twice as many absences

This article is the first in a series exploring employee engagement among U.S. teachers as measured by Gallup Daily tracking.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the U.S., K-12 schoolteachers who are "not engaged" or are "actively disengaged" at work miss an estimated 2.3 million more workdays than teachers who are "engaged" in their jobs.

Perspective and Experience | Hardlines

Perspective is a funny thing. Look forward and the path seems uncertain, the future unpredictable. Look back and all the dots seem to connect… except the dots that mark the choices you didn’t make and the risks you didn’t take.

Experience is that thing you get, roughly five seconds after you needed it. There’s no other way to acquire this powerful and effective trait. You have to do… live through…

View On WordPress

Tools for World Domination -- and a couple of Writer places too

If you are interested in being part of the Internet, or using it ... to advance your professional life, these are some places you should know about. There are also a few that will add a bit of quality to your personal life as well.

1. Trello

Trello helps you manage all your ideas and due dates and keeps track of

what you’re in the process of completing. Plus, it looks nice—it’s like the Pinterest of to-do lists.

2. Hackpad

Think Google Docs—only better for collaboration. Invite as many people as you want to contribute to your docs, or set them to private so they’re just yours.

3. Coffitivity

What is it about a coffee shop that gives you such laser focus? Coffitivity streams the background noises of a coffee shop so you can get your creativity A-game on.

4. FaxZero

FaxZero lets you send and receive faxes through your email—because nobody likes the fax machine.

5. RescueTime

RescueTime lets you monitor how you spend your time on your computer and mobile devices. (The truth is sometimes ugly, but necessary.)

6. Unroll.me

You know all those email newsletters that you accidentally opted into, but don’t really read? Use this site to clear out your inbox.

7. Remember the Milk

A to-do list manager with several key bonuses: You can sync it with your all your devices, share tasks with others, and get email or text reminders of things you need to get done.

8. Springpad

Springpad lets you organize all of your notes, favorite websites, and online inspiration into different folders. It gets bonus points for looking nice, too.

9. HabitForge

Forming a new habit isn’t easy, so HabitForge keeps track of how well you’re doing with simple reminders and check-ins.

10. Evernote

Evernote helps you remember everything using text, photo or audio notes, and clippings of websites.

11. Hemingway

How does that email (or any of your writing!) come off to readers? Plug it into this ingenious app to get the breakdown.

---

Streamline Your Life

12. Feedly

The greatest RSS reader on the market right now, Feedly is the place to keep up with all the latest from your favorite blogs and publications.

13. Pocket

Don’t have time to read that great post your friend just put on Twitter? Send it to Pocket where you’ll be able to read it later—even offline on your phone while you’re commuting home!

14. TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit helps you open up time in your schedule by making it easy to outsource any task you really don’t want to do, from running errands to planning the details of your next vacay.

15. IFTTT

Standing for “if this then that,” IFTTT helps different apps, online programs, and services work together to make your life way easier. Think getting the weather texted to you every morning or having your photos automatically save to Dropbox.

16. Lifehacker

Lifehacker is always coming up with solutions to problems you didn’t even know you had. From how to handle tech woes to the most pro productivity tips, you’re sure to find it here.

17. ZocDoc

Scheduling doctor’s appointments is one of those things that seems to never quite get done. ZocDoc makes it simple to stay healthy by allowing you to schedule and manage your appointments online.

18. Handybook

Need some help around the house? Handybook makes it easy for you to book cleaners, plumbers, movers, and the like—all online.

19. Seamless

Whether you’re stuck late at the office or just don’t feel like cooking when you get home, Seamless is there for you with super-streamlined online takeout ordering.

The Right Word, not The Most Interesting

Oscar Wilde is my hero. Ever since I learned his last words. This quote is so bloated with meaning I could have gone to hero-worship on it alone.

People only hear, what they understand.

That's a maxim that should be taped to the desk right beside the keyboard, and never covered. People do not ask what a word means. Even though they could right-click the mouse and ask Google to define the word for them, they don't. What they do, is ignore the whole sentence and make something up. This is true. Read "Predictably Irrational". The whole sentence -- just gone..Your pitch is useless from there on.

SAT Scores Up - For Some, WAY Up

The College Board released the annual test results of its three programs—AP, SAT, and PSAT/NMSQT -- all in one report this year. Stacking them together gave interesting comparisons, but the news is fantastic.

An unprecedented number of students, including a large increase in minority and low-income students, participated and succeeded. Of the 1.67 million students who took the SAT, nearly half were minorities and nearly a fourth were low-income students. And the number of high school students who succeeded on at least one AP exam (earning at least a 3 out of 5) doubled in the past year.

The report did reveal a few areas that need attention very soon. First, too many students are missing out on opportunities. Thirty-nine percent of the 684,577 students who showed AP potential (indicated by high PSAT/NMSQT scores) didn’t enroll for a single AP class. Likewise, for SAT takers, 9 percent were close to achieving the college and career readiness benchmark and might have succeeded with less than a year of additional instruction.

I'll take those kind of problems every year, thank you very much. With the reports of the last twelve years, I'm very sure that no one was expecting to see the report show 39% of qualifying students, for one reason or another, didn't take advantage  of the AP courses. There are other College Readiness courses however. AP doesn't have a monopoly by any means (Despite what you may have heard from various groups like the Tea Party). So it would be interesting to see how many of those students made it into other programs.

For twelve years, nothing exciting has come from these reports. Comparatively, it is like these kids were being educated in another country. Since Common Core State Standards were implemented this last year (and for some the year before as well), I don't think it is much of a reach to suggest CCSS had something to do with this drastic change. And let’s note that this testing class is the first to have experienced the full run of No Child Left Behind, since kindergarten, which was supposed to have engineered gains in college readiness. Not so much. But let's do a little digging, just to see if this theory has any merit at all.

First we'll look at the states that didn't go to the Common Core State Standards. That would be (for last year) Texas, Wyoming and Virginia.

Overall, nationwide, 42.6% of SAT takers in the class of 2014 met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark. This number has remained virtually unchanged over time. Among all U.S. public school test-takers, 39.1% met the benchmark. Some SAT takers are not in public schools, but in other programs.

Texas

In Texas, 33.9% of test-takers (60,732 students) met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark. Among public school students, 31.9% met the benchmark (52,313 students).

The exam, showed that the average score on the math section of the SAT dropped four points from last year to 495. That was the lowest figure since 1992, when Texas students recorded an average score of 493. A perfect score is 800.
In reading, the Class of 2014 in Texas scored an average 476. That was down slightly from last year but still two points better than their worst showing in the past two decades. That occurred in 2012.

In writing, Texas students registered an average 461 for the third year in a row.

State education officials have attributed the declining SAT scores in Texas to an increase in the number of minority students taking the exam. Minorities generally perform worse than white students on standardized achievement tests like the SAT and ACT, the nation’s two leading college entrance exams.

However, California students outperformed Texans by big margins this year — 15 points in math and 22 points in reading. Demographics of the student populations in the two states are similar: California is 52.7 percent Hispanic and 25.5 percent white, while Texas is 51.3 percent Hispanic and 30 percent white.

Wyoming 

In Wyoming, 81.4% of test-takers (140 students) met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark. Among public school students, 85.4% met the benchmark (111 students). Only 3.3% of the students took the test.

I'm not sure that Wyoming helps us with our theory. While 81.4% is amazing, it also opens up a number of question, like, what happen to all of the other students?

Virginia

In Virginia, 46.6% of test-takers (27,893 students) met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark. Among public school students, 44.9% met the benchmark (23,603 students).

In 2012, which was a record year for Virginia, 43% made the benchmark.

Thus, Virginia continues to rise -- and with this continued show of growth, I understand why they would be hesitant to take on an "untested in the real world" change like CCSS.

Now let's look at California, Arizona and Washington state.

California

In California, 42.3% of test-takers (100,231 students) met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark. Among public school students, 40.0% met the benchmark (82,004 students).

41.9% in the class of 2013. We talked a bit about California's success and challenges above so let's move on to Arizona

Arizona

In Arizona, 48.5% of test-takers (10,973 students) met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark. Among public school students, 47.2% met the benchmark (9,309 students).

2013 results show 37.1%. Note that they were very worried about changing over to CCSS would affect this year's results -- in a negative way. This is an amazing jump.

Washington

In Washington, 46.2% of test-takers (19,060 students) met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark. Among public school students, 44.4% met the benchmark (16,148 students).

2013 shows only 39% made it.


NOTE in the report: However, about one in four Washington students in the SAT class of 2014 did not take a core curriculum. The same is true of test-takers overall.

We are missing a great deal. The scores I'm using are as general as you can get. The jumps from last year are affected by many variables, one of which is that the year before for many states was in the record low area, and teachers went to work with greater effort. Parent participation, funding, more parents home from war -- all of these things affect a child, and affect test scores.

No matter what the reasons however, last year, the kids did it right. Hoping for a good year for 2015.

Project Based Learning

Like flipping the classroom, education technology, videoconferencing and building personal learning networks via Twitter, project-based learning has become a popular topic.

"Standards tell what students should know and be able to do, but do they tell how to use this power, change the world and make a difference?"

In an ideal world, we'd all love our students to ace quizzes and tests, get their homework in on time, and generally demonstrate good student skills. Every year I have wave after wave of students that are so keen on that coveted A+ but they don't really ask themselves what they'll do with this knowledge and skill set that they have learned. I like to think that learning should have applications and I'm not denouncing the need for good assessment habits, but if they're learning merely to pass a test, how can they enjoy a love of learning after they leave that educational system? How can we develop curiosity?

The emphasis on standardized testing as the bottom line in education is proving this point. Although these are good indicators of student learning, they omit the applications of this learning and don't allow students to show why they are learning it in this first place. This is the allure of having "projects" but these are often "add ons" rather than an authentic learning experience.

The Difference between Projects and Project Based Learning

Click to see full size

Resources to Facilitate Project-Based Learning in your Classroom

7 Essentials for Projects Based Learning
Rubric for Collaboration and Proposals
Unit Planner for PBL 
Group Project Planning Template

Resources
Project Based Learning for the 21st century: Database of projects, ideas

Readings
What it takes to become a Project Based Learning School
An inside to how PBL actually works
Essential Questions to Help you Get Started (New York Consortium)

The Effect of Student Engagement

“Imagine a 20 minute lecture where all your students back channel about what you're saying. Outside guests or experts are invited in. Someone acts as a "rudder" to keep the conversation on track. The discussion is displayed on a SMARTboard or with a projector. The chatcast is immediately dumped into a wiki. The rest of the class is devoted to reorganizing the wiki clarifying what was said, answering questions (student to student as well as teacher to student; and don't forget the people, students, teachers, mentors or parents beyond the glass walls of the room) summarizing the big ideas, reframing the discussion in terms of what needs to be explained again and where we're going next. Imagine the possibilities …” -- Terry Friedman, 2008 Talking about bringing Twitter into the classroom. 

In “Pleased to Tweet You,” middle school teacher Kate Messner used a TweetChat with an author and publisher to go along with a book her students had been reading in class. Her students happily chimed in with questions, answered on the screen before their eyes as the teacher tweeted them at the author. The English language teacher followed the children’s favorite authors and students tweeted questions such as “What are your favorite strategies for developing characters’ personalities?” which garnered responses from several published authors.

Twitter has also been used by some teachers to encourage collaboration across countries. For example, one American class had a conversation on Twitter with a Japanese class while they were studying Japanese world history. Many teachers have also used Twitter to talk to fellow teachers and improve their craft, organizing conversations by subject level such as #musedchat for music teachers and #langchat for foreign language teachers.

Sources and additional resources:

1. 5 Unique Uses of Twitter in the Classroom

2. 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom

3. Can We Use Twitter for Educational Activities? 

4. Pleased to Tweet You: Making a Case for Twitter in the Classroom

5. Twitter Takes a Trip to College

6. Teachers Take to Twitter to Improve Craft and Commiserate

7. Twitter in the Classroom

8.Infographic from OnlineColleges.net, A Teacher’s Guide to Social Media

What do you think? Does Twitter have a place in the classroom? How about other new media technology?

mostly by Lindsey Cook

Lindsey Rogers Cook

Senior journalism and computer science student at The University of Georgia Honors Program.

lindzcook@gmail.com; 678-464-7351; @lindzcook; www.digitize-me-captain.com 

7 countries where Americans can study at universities, in English, for free

From the Washington Post this morning --

Since 1985, U.S. college costs have surged by about 500 percent, and tuition fees keep rising. In Germany, they've done the opposite.

The country's universities have been tuition-free since the beginning of October, when Lower Saxony became the last state to scrap the fees. Tuition rates were always low in Germany, but now the German government fully funds the education of its citizens -- and even of foreigners.

Explaining the change, Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a senator in the northern city of Hamburg, said tuition fees "discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany."

Read the Rest on the Washington Post 

It is no wonder that we are something like 25 on the list of "Educated Countries" These countries take the education of their citizens seriously, almost sacredly. For us it is little more than a political bargaining chip, and a place where slush money can be taken from when needed. 

A 2009 study found that U.S. students ranked 25th among 34 countries in math and science, behind nations like China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland. Figures like these have groups like StudentsFirst, headed by former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, concerned and calling for reforms to "our education system [that] can't compete with the rest of the world." 

Just 6 percent of U.S. students performed at the advanced level on an international exam administered in 56 countries in 2006. That proportion is lower than those achieved by students in 30 other countries. American students' low performance and slow progress in math could also threaten the country's economic growth, experts have said. -- Huffington Post

Facebook as a Lesson Platform -- theedublogger

If you are one of those out there that believe that Facebook has no place in the classroom, then, well maybe this post isn’t for you. But please first take a look at just a few reasons why you should reconsider:

1. The fact is, the majority of your students and their parents are probably already on Facebook
2. Even when schools have a policy against being “friends” online, there are tools you can use that won’t violate policy
3. Despite what you may hear, there are strong privacy options that you can set up so only those that you want can access your information
4. We have an obligation as educators to model appropriate online behavior and learn right along our students

From http://www.mindjumpers.com/blog/2011/04/education-industry-infographic-2/

Where do we begin?

Just today, Facebook released their own sponsored Facebook For Educators guide, but we found that there really wasn’t enough “how-to” in this guide to make it worth it.

FacebookForEducators.org

However, it is a good document to read through to get the philosophical stuff down and get familiar with some of the unique facebook vocabulary such as profile, page, groups, etc.

The rest of this posts seeks to lay out all of the options you have for using facebook in the classroom and connecting with your students, parents, and community.

 See a video here: http://vimeo.com/68735668

Should we be “friends” with students?

This is certainly a hotly debated question.

Your school might have a policy that doesn’t allow you to friend your students on Facebook. We definitely don’t want you to go against any policy! But, we feel that done responsibly, you should absolutely friend your current students! Why?

• Get to know them in a whole different light – students share their likes, hobbies, and more. Really getting to know your students transfers into a better experience in the classroom and a better ability to reach every student.
• Create an open and supportive environment – if you are open to it, students could even send you a quick chat message if they are stuck on a homework question in the evening.
• Keep up with students years later – there is no doubt you are one of your students’ favorite teachers ever. Keep in touch and communicate years after they leave your classroom.

Just one personal example from a former student that just posted to my wall last month:

How to safely “friend” students on facebook

Option 1: Use Lists to keep some things private

To set up a list of all of your students you will want to take the following steps:

1. Click on Friends in the left sidebar after logging in to Facebook

2. Click on Edit Friends at the top right

3. Click on +Create a List which will appear in the same location as the button from step 2

4. Add all of your students to the list you just created by clicking on “Edit List” next to their names

5. Click on Account > Privacy Settings in upper right corner

6. Click on Customize settings in bottom left

7. Use the drop down menu to limit your students from seeing what you don’t want them to by clicking onCustomize and then type in the name of your list in the Hide these from these people: text box

I limit everything under the “Things others share” category, as well as my posts, photos, location, and contact information. Really, when they visit my profile, all they can see is my profile image, school and work info, and that’s about it.

Option 2: Set-up a second account just for your students (and parents)

Many schools and experts are recommending that teachers create a whole new facebook account just to use in their professional lives.

This may work for you, but in reality, you are less likely to be able to keep up with more than one account and it kind of defeats the whole purpose anyway.

That being said, it may be a good option for you. Just create an account using your school email address and only let students and parents friend you there.

Why every educator, school, and organization needs a facebook “fan” page

Even better than friending students online is setting up a fan page.

Fan pages allow you to distribute announcements, blog posts, events, assignments, and more right into the “live streams” of those that “fan” your page.

This is better than using your personal profile because there is no need for parents or students to be your friends to get the updates, and it can really be used to develop an online community around your class or school.

An example of using a teacher page

However, many parents will have to be coached into seeing the benefits of a facebook page and there might be resistance. It is important to only post things such as names and photos if permission is granted, and announcements will want to be more generic in nature.

Here are a few examples to take a look at (and maybe even fan!):

• Mr. Edelman’s Teacher Page
• Ms. Adams Class Page
• Mr. Whalberg’s Science Class
• P.E. Kids Going Global

Know of more or have your own?

Leave a comment so we can add it to the list!

Other facebook pages for educators:

• Edublogs
• Educators 30 Goals Challenge
• Official Facebook In Education Page

And fan pages for Educator Blogs:

• Toronto Teacher Mom
• Free Tech For Teachers

How to create a facebook fan page

1. Login to your facebook account

2. Go to facebook.com/pages

3. Click on “Create a page” in top right

4. Choose “Artist, Band, or Public Figure” if you are a teacher and choose “Organization” if you are a school or group

5. Follow the steps on screen to get started

Adding the “like box” to your blog or website

One of the best ways of letting your students and others know about your fan page is to put a “like box” on your blog, wiki, or website.

Here is an example of a small like box for our facebook page:

It wouldn’t hurt to press that like button here either 

Here is how to get your own:

1. Go here to get the code needed for your box

2. Type in the URL or link to your facebook page

3. Choose if you want to show the stream – this will display the most recent posts to your facebook page’s wall

4. Change the size and decide on the other options available

5. Click on Get Code and copy the iFrame code from the top box

6. In a blog, paste the code into the HTML Tab of a page or post, or into a blank text widget in your sidebar

7. This code should also be able to be pasted in most wikis and websites – look for help info on embedding codefor more

Groups – An alternative to Pages

Note: This section was added on 5/12/2011 and didn’t appear when the post was originally published.

After initially deciding to leave Groups out from the discussion, we received comments down below about how many educators prefer Groups over Pages.

The truth is, Facebook made some recent changes to Groups since the last time I played around with them – so maybe they are a good alternative after all.

So what are the differences between a page and a group?

Here is a chart that hopefully will make the differences (and similarities) a bit more clear:

I think Pat McCullough sums it up best in his comment below, “My sense is that people would take more ownership of activity in a Group than a Page. In terms of what the two features signify to users, my impression is that a Group implies that the students are creators of content, while the Page places the instructor more prominently as the ultimate mediator of content.”

So in deciding between a group and a page, you will want to think about your goals for setting one or the other up.

How to set up a group

Setting up a group is a quick process.

1. Sign in to your facebook account.

2. Visit facebook.com/groups.

3. Click on the green “Create Group” button in the top right and follow the on screen prompts.

You will want to be careful as you create your group to make sure that you limit messaging and other privacy issues if it is frowned upon by your school.

The great Facebook debate

Many educators and parents have their own (and valid) opinions about the use of facebook in schools.

Some say it is a distraction, an unnecessary mix of leisure and learning, and even dangerous.

Others realize the power of reaching out to students and understand how facebook can be the best way to keep parents informed and encourage their participation in the learning process.

So what do you think?

Leave us comments below with anything you would like to add.

by BY RONNIE BURT · MAY 11, 2011