Social Networking as Educational Networking

Our school district is cracking down on employees' use of social networking tools. In a recent memo from Human Resources, we were reminded to use such sites responsibly. It was highly suggested that employees (i.e. teachers and administrators) not be friends with students or their parents.

This has created a dilemma for some of my colleagues. One teacher went so far as to unfriend all the kids in her neighborhood who were a part of her social network, including her own daughters. When does one's place of work supersede one's parenting? It doesn't! Having her own daughters as friends on a social networking site allows her to parent better.

Another teacher is concerned about being friends with the ladies in her women's church group on a favorite social networking site because some of these friends also have children who attend her school. God forbid, those kids see Ms. XYZ on their mom's friend list, especially posting to their moms' walls about Bible study on Thursday night.

Really? Really? Okay, I get it, the liability issues. I get that we have some professionals who lack a fair amount of commonsense. (Makes me wonder how they become educators in the first place, but I digress.) I understand the district's concerns about inappropriate use of such sites.

But when are we going to embrace the 21st century and embrace the technology tools that could really improve our academic and educational connections with students, parents, and colleagues?! When are we going to see social networking as more? When are we going to see the benefits of educational networking with social media?

There are so many great examples of educational networking on many of the social sites: students creating study groups, PTAs with groups or pages, teachers with subject area PLCs, whole core classes using social media to continue discussions outside of the classroom. How cool is that?! It's WAY cool!

If we're waiting for mainstream education institutions to fully accept social networking as an educational tool, we might be waiting for the 22nd century. By then, we'll have chips in our heads and not even district filters can stop the search and spread of information!

Word of the Week: Singleton

I spent last weekend on a beach retreat with a group from my middle school library media PLC. We were a group of six women who love to read young adult literature, to talk about the latest and greatest instructional technology, and to bounce ideas off one another in regards to improving our library media programs.

Most recently we've been discussing how our colleagues, other library media coordinators, are often alone in a school. We're one person, sometimes two, managing the library media program, doing collection development, managing the facility, designing and implementing reading incentive programs, planning and collaborating and instructing. We are often a singleton in a school of many core content teachers.

And we've decided that we don't like the term singleton!

For some reason the term has a negative connotation: an outsider. In this collaborative environment, I don't want to be an outsider. I want to be an insider, one who is in the know and who is sharing my expertise with my colleagues, one who is working with others to impact student achievement.

A slip of the tongue and singleton becomes simpleton. Maybe not for most, but it's too close for comfort. And as one colleague reminded me, our principal is only one person in her position. Do we call her a singleton? Of course, not! She's our administrator!

So now we have to come up with a better term for singleton. I'm kinda partial to expert, but then I suppose there are many experts in the building. How can I define a single/one individual in a program area who most likely works collaboratively with all? (The singletons in my school also include academically gifted teacher, guidance counselor, music teacher, Spanish teacher)

Fellow experts, specialists, individuals, educational beings, what do you think of the word singleton?