The
electronic communication plan is a document that can be referenced at any time
by students, staff, or the public. It is
posted externally on our school’s website under the BOCES policies. The document is entitled the Student Use
of the Internet and Electronic Communications. This five page student policy explains our
the expectations around blocking or filtering obscene or harmful content,
privacy, unauthorized and unacceptable uses, security, safety, vandalism,
unauthorized content, assigning student projects and monitoring student use,
student use is a privilege, and that the school or district makes no
warranties. It is a thorough document
explaining precisely what content is and is not appropriate. Further, my school is proud to participate in
the Yondr movement of locking up cell
phones during the school day with small bags and locking stations. I believe that our school uses technology in
the right way to help students learn, communicate and build twenty-first
century skills.
Our communication plan views
electronic communication as very positive way.
The addition of a few simply policies and structures allow students to
use the internet and electronic communication as a tool to further their
educational pursuits. Here is an
excerpt from our JS document or Student Use of the Internet and
Electronic Communications plan:
Use of the Internet and electronic
communications requires students to think critically, analyze information,
write clearly, use problem-solving skills and hone computer and research skills
that employers demand. Use of these tools also encourages an attitude of
lifelong learning and offers an opportunity for students to participate in
distance learning activities, ask questions of and consult with experts,
communicate with other students and individuals and locate material to meet
educational and personal information needs. (JS, accessed on 10/20/2019).
RMSEL
embraces the use of electronic communication and the internet and tries to
foster a love of life-long learning through this powerful and fluid technological
advancement.
Our school has traditionally not embraced social media as a
communication tool in any way. We
primarily use email, google classroom, and infinite campus (a leaning
management system operated by Denver Public Schools to track metrics like
grades, attendance, etc.) to communicate with students and families. However, recently our enrollment numbers in
the high school are low (only sixty-one students out of a possible one hundred
students) and our leadership team met and decided to create an Instagram account
with two purposes. First, we wanted to
tell the unique story of our school and link it back to a podcast that small
amount of high schools students created during an elective with their math
teacher and secondly to recruit and retain more high school students.
Our leadership team, which I sit on along with three other
teachers at our school, debated and eventually settled on using Instagram as a
way to share the story of our by letting each class own the account and use it
to post information for one week each year.
My executive director recently sent this message out to our community on
October 8th.
Over the years our families have
come to learn about our schools philosophy regarding Social Media. As an
organization we have also surveyed parents and found that approximately half of
our parent community actively use social media to access information. We have
refrained from the use of social media in past years as countless research
articles and studies have been conducted describing the negative effects on
socialization and child development, in short we felt that it was not our place
to be active with social media while at the same time telling our students that
they should refrain from use. I will
personally share that this is a “blind spot” for me as a leader because I
refrain from the use of social media.
Yesterday, our Leadership Team
convened consisting of our administrators, instructional coaches, and teacher
leaders, one item on the agenda was “Social Media.” At RMSEL, we have so much
to share that is happening every day, in classrooms, the field, fitness, crew
trips, etc. Social Media is an additional platform to share these celebrations
with a broader audience. The team reviewed all major platforms and felt that if
we are to establish a social media platform that Instagram best aligns with our
mission and vision. The team agreed that Facebook and Twitter lean toward a
negative connotation and construct for more interaction, which is not our
purpose for use. We want to share with our local community celebrations of
learning from our amazing school and the team felt that this would be best done
through Instagram. In the spirit of shared decision making and collaboration
the team also would like to use this as an opportunity to learn safe digital
practices for students. Our platform will be managed by the administration but
operated by a different crew each week. Each crew will be responsible for
taking photographs and posting messages that celebrate learning across our K-12
community. The students will schedule the posts and they will be reviewed by
administration prior to posting. This shared ownership provides students with
the responsibility of content creation. The official school account can be
found at (rmsel_denver)!
We will ensure the integrity of
parent request regarding media usage and no child with media exemptions will be
included in any post. Also, the comment feature will not be active as this is a
tool to share a message from the school not a place for digital conversation. (Burns, 2019)
This new
communication tool will forever change the electronic footprint of our
school. We were traditionally a school
that really only viewed electronic communication and the internet as a tool for
learning and collaborating and only recently have we decided to use it as a
tool to share our story with world and try to recruit more high school
students. For a school that spending much more time
purposefully disconnecting to the internet, computers and cell phones, I
believe we are going to face a steep learning curve in the next few months in
implementing our new social media program.
Our school, like our students, must continue to evolve and learn and
grow with the electronic communication tools that have been created around us.
Appendix
Student Use of the Internet and Electronic Communication
Document for RMSEL: http://www.rmsel.org/documents/BOCES/J%20Policy%20Revisions%202017/JS-StudentUseoftheInternetandElectronicCommunication.pdf
References
Burns,
Chad. Executive Director of Rocky
Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning.
Community Communication. October 8th, 2019.
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