I worked with an awesome group of educators to get the final project completed (social media policy). They were organized and well-informed, with a Google Drive setup to store any documents, and Slack used to communicate with each other.
For me, the timing was not great, as it coincided with my first attempt at completing a Yearbook. I categorically underestimated how much of my life would be consumed by this herculean task, so I was not able to dive head-first in with my group. Having said that they were incredibly patient with me. I have not collaborated with people from 3 other countries before, so the experience was brand new to me. I am used to dropping by someone’s classroom or office during the day, so not being able to be physically in the room with my co-conspirators was somewhat alien to me. The bit I enjoyed the most was using comments in Google Docs to highlight points and resolve them later on.
The policy idea was Ryan’s and I immediately jumped on board, as our school also doesn’t have one; but it is in desperate need of such a thing! The standards addressed in the policy cover all stakeholders in our school community and are written in a way that is accessible to them. Like in the week 5 task, we want to empower our students, faculty, and families to be positive with their online identities, but to keep the bigger picture at the back of their minds when doing so. The policy language also links snuggly with the learning around turning an AUP into a EUP. In the content section, we talk about respecting and citing other people’s work. There is a section on well-being and relationships, which ties in ever so nicely with empathy.
For the most part, the social media policy is so open-minded in nature that it could potentially serve any school. The only change that I feel I needed to change was the trip section, as we use Padlet to communicate school trip information and updates. I also added WeChat as our messaging group of choice, given that so many other options are blocked here in China; the preferred one being Whatsapp.
For anyone that is interested I will be facilitating, along with 7 other teaching legends, the previous final project at my school tomorrow; it is due to last all week. I will add a few blog updates during the week, for the first-ever week of coding at SCIS!
Happy Sunday all