On being a Connected Educator, Part Two

What follows is a continuation of yesterday's post of questions I am answering for Connected Educators. Oh, I also remembered that I wrote a column on this topic for Educational Leadership last May that you can find here.

 

Q; How has connected education benefited Mankato Area Public Schools? The introduction of GoogleApps for Education in late 2009 ignited an explosion in the use of online tools that increased online collaboration (connection) among our district’s staff members. We are a large district (for Minnesota) with 18 schools and office buildings, so being about to work on curriculum documents, do joint school PD planning, and hold meetings and trainings using Hangouts has brought us together as a district.

Student/teacher communications have benefited. In less than three years, our Moodle server now hosts 348 blended courses and we have over 5,000 users this September. 195 teachers (out of about 600) have at least at least one course. Over half our 7600 students have participated in some form of locally offered online learning experience. GoogleApps is how our students create documents, spreadsheets and graphics – and how they share them for feedback from their teachers and from each other.

We have also built connections with our families. Using the student and parent portals in Infinite Campus, our student information system, teachers keep parents and students current on their attendance, grades, and completion of assignments. Our classroom teachers and administrators have long used webpages to inform families, but social media including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs is now adding an element of interactivity to these connections.

Much of our professional development related to technology use has moved online to classes and activities offered in Moodle. We’ve been sharing our successes (and challenges) in afterschool Hangouts, with teachers from multiple buildings presenting their experiences. The convenience and effectiveness of these online experiences has overshadowed our poorly attended, voluntary inservices.

Q: What do you think your peers at the district technology office level should be doing to support connected education? Very simply, we should be enabling and encouraging online interactions by staff, rather than blocking them. By filtering at the minimum level required by CIPA, we have kept open as many means for interaction as possible. We do not block Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or other means of sharing original digital content.

Technology directors also need to take a leading role in making sure there is a solid Digital Citizenship curriculum in place that teaches students (and teachers) how to act ethically and safely in a connected learning environment. We have written board policy for social networking, as well as guidelines that support our Acceptable Use Policy.

Finally, I believe our most powerful role may be as models of connected learning, sharing resources we have found (and our means of finding them) with our administrators and teaching staff. Technology directors should themselves share with their peers through professional blogs, Google+, Facebook groups, Pinterest, and Twitter, leading by example. A day doesn’t pass that I am not thankful for one my peers in my PLN who has informed me, raised my level of concern, or even made me angry. And it is the least I can do in return. 

The edited final version of this profile will be here.
<http://connectededucators.org/innovations/connected-educator-profiles/>