[Music] there's a lot of Buzz these days about electronic communication and social media in the classroom from email to wikis Facebook to YouTube teachers and Educators across the province have questions concerns and ideas about these everpresent and ever growing media the Ontario College of teachers offers advice to its members with the professional advisory on the use of electronic communication and social media today we'll explore that advisory talking with both Educators and social media experts to better understand how electronic communication and social media can be used responsibly and effectively but first a few words on social media talk to both teachers and experts in the field and you'll learn that social media is more than a passing trend for many students it represents the single most commonly used Avenue for communication and Community I think that social media is a tool that we can use in education I think it would be wasteful to not take advantage of it and I would encourage teachers to experiment in their classrooms and administrators to encourage that kind of experimentation in their schools social media is important for teachers in school schools primarily because it's their students window to the world today it's how they coordinate events it's how they share photos and videos and on a social level it's really how students move their lives forward I think if we don't use social media that we are doing a disservice to our students because that's the way that they're communicating that's that's what they're already doing at home and I think there's a real danger by not teaching them how you can use these types of media in a constructive way when you post something on the Internet the scary thing is it's there forever many teachers in Ontario are already finding innovative ways to integrate social media into the school day from the use of YouTube as a reference to the development of blogs for information sharing and class projects I'm a dance teacher and uh I use YouTube with my students I find social media very useful for to deliver the curriculum and to communicate with students to find examples sometimes the students record themselves and they can see themselves they can broadcast their Productions I find it's a way to motivate students and also to reach them in something that they're really interested in well last year I actually taught a self-contained congregated gifted class every student in the class had a Facebook account any type of lesson that I did I tried to integrate um some kind of media so we've been using classroom websites so all the teachers have created a class website with Dynamic changes so every day they're updating it with calendar information uh homework that kind of thing we also have students going on to blogger so they're sharing what they've learned with each other with us we also have uh them creating their own websites as a way of condensing their knowledge and information as well we realize that this is an opportunity for us to teach them how to use the social media effectively and in a safe way but also you know a way for us to to teach them as well the content and curriculum that we need to cover with New Media come not only new opportunities but also new responsibilities electronic communication and social media are often conducted in public forums which creates a need for attention to privacy issues professional vulnerability and legal implications the Ontario College of teachers professional advisory on the use of electronic communication and social media provides clear advice on these issues including the need to understand that off-duty conduct matters when it comes to social media awareness that there can be unintended misuse of electronic communication and knowledge that the inappropriate use of electronic communication and social media can result in criminal charges or civil action social media experts and the Ontario College of teachers professional advisory Provide support for educators in making making appropriate use of New Media we need to be sure that we maintain at all times professional conduct professional Communications and I think that proper use of Technologies on the part of teachers and educational staff but also by teaching students what appropriate communication with professional staff looks like I think on both sides that there can be some good learning well there are questions that teachers can ask themselves when communic with their students the questions they want to ask themselves is if I post this will it go everywhere on the site is it something I'd be comfortable with and the teacher always wants to stay away from opinion they want to stay away from being subjective and they just want to be extremely objective almost to the point of you know almost Ultra generic in their description of what they want to communicate with students if I wrote a story for my teacher and I wanted to share it with the entire world I could having so social media as part of my toolbox is I think essential to me as a teacher I'm really always looking for ways that I can try and make a difference in the lives of my students in the way that they learn and in the way that they can communicate and it just seems like the perfect thing to use electronic communication and social media offer exciting new opportunities for reaching and teaching students by paying close attention to professional boundaries and understanding potential ramifications you can make social media appropriate useful and [Music] Powerful