Three weeks ago I did a couple presentations to parents about Parenting In the Digital Age:

This FREE workshop is for parents, both the tech savvy and the less technically inclined, who would like to develop family expectations around the use of technology to play, learn and connect.

For this presentation I created a wiki: http://raisingdigitalkids.wikispaces.com/ and tonight I’ve finally uploaded the presentation to Slideshare.

A key part of the presentation is the handout called ‘Engaging with kids‘.  It is made up of a series of questions based on the presentation, but not necessarily in the presentation. The point is asking questions and finding the right balance or ‘fit’ for each family rather than offering any kind of prescribed answers.

I spent most of the day writing presentation notes and editing my slide transitions out for the Slideshare version. My goal was to create an online presentation that others could use.

Special thanks to:

• Dave Sands, much of my presentation came from ideas shared in his presentations. I had the honour of co-presenting with him, on an earlier version of these presentations.

• Amalia Giebitz, who organized these presentations, doing all the work to get ICD support and even recruiting friends to come to the events.

Feedback, as always, is appreciated!

I’m at a Canadian School in China. At a staff meeting I shared a thoughtful blog post by a student reporter for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. It’s a great post by a student that went and visited ‘Tent City’, built to house the city’s homeless during the Olympics: Olympic Games Side Effects on Vancouver. My Grade 9 teacher asked for the Students Live website and a link to this post. (I mentioned the Students Live bloggers here.)

The Students Live website provides a number of different ways to connect and interact with the Olympic reporter student bloggers. However, we live in China which filters a lot of social software websites and so these were the options that my Grade 9 teacher was confronted with:

Facebook: BLOCKED

Twitter: BLOCKED

YouTube: BLOCKED

Blogspot Blogs: BLOCKED

Flickr: (recently) BLOCKED (again)

I had to use my VPN to bypass the Chinese filter in order to cut and paste the blog post, mentioned above, into an email so that my teacher could read it in his class. A potential global ‘conversation’ reduced to a reading, confined to a classroom. Frustrating!

Now here is the thing… I chose to move to a country where a lot of sites get blocked. I can’t imagine what it’s like for teachers in the ‘free world’ that have their own school districts do this to them!

If you are in a school where filters filter learning, here is a little poster for you to hang up in your front entrance:

A 2nd year teacher that I keep in touch with sent me an email yesterday:

“Hey Dave!

How do you feel about adding students as friends on Facebook?  I use my Facebook mainly as a communication tool.

I don’t put anything up that I wouldn’t want people to see.  In the evening, my students have trouble getting in touch with me via [district] email, so I’ve had a few messages via facebook (which they can do without being my friend.)

I have had a few requests from legitimate students.  There have been a few requests from students I don’t want on my list…and I have denied their request.”

Here was my response and a few points I’d like to make afterwards.

________________________________________________

The fact is that I’m not a huge fan of Facebook, just because I’m already connected to so many people online and it feels like just one more place I have to go. Also I tend to get stuck talking to old friends and former students who just want to say ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ rather than having meaningful or learning conversations. That has changed a bit since moving to China.

- So yes, to answer your question, I do have students as friends on Facebook.

Something important to be aware of with Facebook and settings: When you join a group or a fan club etc. your profile becomes open to all the other members for a limited time, (I don’t remember the timeline or know if this has changed or not). This is a great example of why, if you are a teacher on Facebook or anywhere else you MUST be professional at all times. We don’t know when or why Facebook will change their rules like this? We don’t know what Facebook does with our records or how secure what we have said in the past will be protected in the future? They are a private company and have private motives.

On the point of being careful about what you do and say online, here is a great lesson for teachers and students alike: Check out my blog as of July 14th, 2008. I got this from the WayBackMachine on the Internet Archive. I cannot change anything on this permanent record! Digital text is (or at least can be) forever!

4. If I see something inappropriate then I say so:

Example:

Hi [Student Name],

I hope things are good with you and that you are enjoying [Secondary School]!

I’m not sure why you thought I’d be interested in joining:

“Support my cause, F*** The Police. Help by joining, donating, or inviting your friends!”

Not really appropriate. Hopefully you won’t be sending similar things like that to me because I can’t have that kind of stuff in my facebook community.

It is nice to stay connected, but if you wanted to remove me as a friend, I understand. And likewise, if I get invitations such as this then I’ll need to remove you as a friend. Hopefully this won’t be something either of us feel we need to do.

Good luck with exams, but first, enjoy your Christmas break!

Mr. Truss

Also, with kids that I don’t know that well, I usually send them a ‘Thanks for inviting me’ message:

Hi [student name], Thanks for inviting me into your network. Have a great weekend!

I always find it a bit strange when a kid I barely know invites me to facebook, with my rule #2 above, I accept them, but I send a ‘thanks’ message just so that I have evidence that they started the friendship. This might be a good idea to do with all student connections.

5. I do not erase any messages between me and students. If they want to quote me out of context, then I want to have a record of what that context was.

Read my last post on the topic for more details: Facing Facebook

This does not mean that we get ‘chummy’ with our students online… we are simply a significant adult presence, modeling appropriate behavior, and connecting with them in a meaningful, respectful way. The internet is no place for an unsupervised playground!

Also check these other two posts out and read the comments on all 3 to see how differently teachers look at this.

Social Networking Sites: Public, Private or What? by Danah Boyd (Found via Dana Woods)

“When a teen is engaged in risky behaviour online, that is typically a sign that they’re engaged in risky behaviour offline. Troubled teens reveal their troubles online both explicitly and implicitly. It is not the online world that is making them troubled, but it is a fantastic opportunity for intervention.”

Teachers and Facebook by Dana Huff

“One positive aspect of using Facebook is that nothing else is as quick in terms of communicating with students. I have often asked students to get together on Facebook and study or to spread a message I want to make sure they get. Because I am not friends with students who don’t request it, I can’t use it as a reliable method to contact all of my students. I created a Facebook page, and they can become fans of that page without being my friend, but again, it’s not something I feel comfortable requiring.”

“We” -meaning teachers/parents/adults -need to be on places like Facebook, but “we” as individuals have a right to choose: ‘Do I want to be on facebook?’ and ‘Do I want to be friends with students there?’ If the answer to both questions are ‘Yes’ then we must figure out what our comfort zone is with connecting with students in a meaningful and thoughtful way. And whether or not we choose to connect with students on sites like Facebook, we must be professional in our online conduct… always!

________________________________________________

A few final thoughts.

I firmly believe that districts and schools have no right to tell teachers that they can not connect with students on social networks. It would be like saying, ”As a teacher, I don’t want you going to the shopping mall at the end of the street and if you are there, you certainly can’t talk to the students that go there.”

However, I also believe that as teachers our professional code of conduct extends into the digital world and we need to be accountable and professional.

Also, as I said in the comments on Dana Huff’s post:

Personally I wouldn’t use Facebook in the classroom. I think there are so many good tools out there, like Ning networks for example, that I’d rather not take a site my students like to socialize on and somehow make that site ‘work’ for them.

Forcing kids to participate on Facebook, or insisting that they add classmates as friends or that they must become fans of a group is not an ideal way to create a meaningful learning space.

And finally, I’ll end with this from my Facing Facebook post:

If we (educators and parents) don’t participate with students online, then we run the risk of having misguided or inexperienced friends, or worse yet bullies, becoming greater influences than us in their lives.

Students today will have a digital footprint. Are we going to let them figure it out on their own? Or will we be there with them, educating them along the way?

After a month in China, I’ve come to realize that North Americans live in a bubble wrapped world.

In the ‘Western’ world we walk around oblivious to our surroundings, going about our business feeling safe and secure. I don’t mean safe in the sense of being cautious of others, since in actual fact, I have always felt safe in China (other than in the occasional taxi), and in fact Dalian feels safer than downtown Vancouver or Toronto when I’m out late at night.  I mean safe, in the West, in the sense that there are laws and bylaws and rules in place to make sure that we are ‘protected’ from unexpected harm: Guardrails and warning sign and lit-up crosswalks with pedestrian controlled lighting abound.

In the bubble wrap West we occasionally read or hear about someone who slips right next to a ‘wet floor’ sign or trips on an uneven curb and they end up blaming and suing others: “It wasn’t safe”, “It was faulty”, “The step was too high” or “The railing was too low”. Our day-to-day environment is safe, secure, sheltered… and sterile.

In China, things are different. Pedestrian walkways are a suggested crossing location and give no rights to the pedestrian. White and yellow lines on the roads are mere suggestions for where a pedestrian should stand as cars zip by at speeds up to 60km/hr, the occasional horn blast reminds you not to make any unexpected moves.

Here, doorways have immediate steps going up or down as you cross the threshold. You must walk with your eyes on the curb as a missing tile, or a sudden step may appear, unexpected by Western terms but fully expected here.

At the far end of Xinghai Square there is a structure I’ve only ever heard called ‘The Open Book’. The book opens up with concrete slabs raised to more than 6 meters on the sides, with no rails and a simple yellow line painted to suggest a caution. Nearby a beautiful walkway has a single chain fence that sits gently near the path, supported by short concrete posts- on the other side of the rail, a two+ meter drop onto rocks. Two examples of things that just wouldn’t exist in the west… there just isn’t enough bubble wrap present to permit them.

I think schools have become a bit too bubble wrapped too. We protect the kids from impending harm, bubble wrapping their learning. However I think sometimes we harm them in our attempt to keep them safe. Here are a few digital examples:
1) Instead of teaching them intelligent searching, we filter websites.
2) Instead of teaching them online safety we stop them from creating online profiles.
3) Instead of letting them connect and learn socially, we ban them from social networks where there is potential for bullying.
4) Instead of letting them seek out experts, we hand pick the guest lecturer.

What we are doing is creating a facade of security, nothing more than an illusion of bubble wrap.

1) Filters prevent teachers from knowing what a search will show students at home.
2) Students create online profiles behind teachers and (more specifically) parents backs and put personal information on the profiles since they have not had any adult advice about how to protect their identity.
3) Social websites like Facebook, unsupervised, becomes a playground where the bully tends to ‘win’.
4) Students have no idea how to ‘talk to strangers’ online, but they don’t have their parents or teachers advice when (not if, when) that happens.

Well now it is time to pop some of the bubble wrap. It’s time to remove some railings and teach kids to be careful. There is a whole world ‘out there’ to explore! Yet, I’m not saying be reckless.

My daughters have experienced freedom here like they have never had before, ‘Go play outside and be back by dinner.’ – something I got to do at their age, but my kids didn’t really get in Canada. But, I’m not letting them cross a busy street on their own yet, (the overprotective dad in me says they won’t cross a street alone in Dalian until they are in their 20′s), because they are still at a stage where, if scared they might do something a driver won’t expect, and human/car mistakes aren’t ones I want my daughters to learn the hard way. My point: we will all have different comfort zones, but if we don’t start popping some bubble wrap, we are not really protecting our kids like we think we are.

On Monday night Sexual Health Educator Alix Bacon from SaleemaNoon.com/ did a parent presentation at our school. Today and tomorrow she is presenting to our students in groups of 2-3 classes at a time.

This is what I got out of the parent session…

—–

When talking about sex, two ideas really struck a chord with me:

1. The younger we bring up the topic, the more comfortable students/kids are talking about protection and prevention later on.

2. Open the lines of communications, and keep them open, and a kid is more likely to come to you for information or tell you a problem. (Rather than turning to the wrong people or relying on the poor judgement of friends.)

Alix spoke about how Predators go after kids that lack information/knowledge and kids that do not have clear boundaries about what is and what isn’t appropriate. This was confirmed with research where predators, who had at least 10 victims, were interviewed and asked what they looked for in a ‘target’. Time and again they looked for the naive, uncertain, kids that had limited knowledge, or vocabulary, pertaining to sex.

—–

Now, let’s think about online predators for a moment… doesn’t it make sense that they would look for uninformed, unsupervised students? Would they target kids who put all their information online, and don’t understand safety?

Now, let’s think about cyberbullies for a moment… doesn’t it make sense that they would go after kids who they knew couldn’t talk to their parents or teachers about a problem. Kids who sneak behind their parents backs to go online, or who don’t understand the permanence of what they say online?

Maybe it isn’t just sex we should be talking about with kids when they are young?

Maybe protection and prevention are things we should think about online?

Maybe these conversations need to happen both at home and at schools?

Maybe we need to engage with kids on Facebook, or deal with cyberbullying in the classroom, or examine how we can handle issues without ‘slinging mud’.

It is ok to bring in a specialist to make sure a minimal amount of basic background or common language is discussed, but beyond that we need to keep the conversations and the learning going… About sex, about online safety, about appropriate behavior in our schools and community, and about being smart, safe citizens.

Let’s talk about more than just sex.

Some people say ‘kids will be kids’… Some adults have never forgotten what it felt like to be a victim.

What happens when adults are not present?

Sometimes kids do things they shouldn’t do. Sometimes kids make choices based on what their friends do rather than on what they know is the right thing to do.

Sometimes the bully wins:

It happens on playgrounds, in cafeterias, and friend’s basements, at parties & school dances, and yes, it happens online too.

Parents supervise their kids on playgrounds, and teachers supervise students in our schools…

Who supervises these kids online? Whose responsibility is it?

Whether it is a responsibility to be present online or not, what right do we as educators have to be online? Should our role change what we do on sites like Facebook? On a more personal note: Who are my online ‘friends’? Should I be ‘friends’ with my students online?

Here’s what I think:

When facing the issue of Facebook,
our students are there,
and we should be there too!

I am not advocating for necessary presence, and I am not advocating for us taking on a burden of responsibility. I am saying that we should have the choice to be there and we should have the choice to interact with students on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Some educators will choose to be on Facebook, some will choose to interact there with students, some won’t. My concern is that I’m hearing instances of student teacher faculty advisors, teachers and principals, and even districts telling educators that they should remove their Facebook profiles.

This really happened:

1. Student A created an “I hate Teacher X” group on Facebook. The students in the group start saying really nasty things about Teacher X. Student B joins this group, however this student is ‘friends’ on Facebook with another teacher, Teacher Y. So, when Teacher Y goes onto Facebook she sees an update informing her that Student B has joined this “I hate Teacher X” group and she reports it to her Administration. Teacher Y also gets the group shut down. How far could this have gone?
2. Student C decides to create a “Student D is a Fag” group. Student D has no idea this exists. Teacher Z finds the site and shuts it down when it only has 3 students in it and 34 unanswered invitations to join the group. How far could this have gone? How many students were taught a lesson when they clicked ‘Join this group’ only to find that the group was shut down?
3. Teacher W sees that Student E has joined the “National Skip Day” group. In the hall the next day Teacher W says to Student E, “I hope you aren’t planning to skip my class on that day”. Guess who shows up to school on National Skip Day! How many of Student E’s friends were influenced by this decision?
   
4. Mr. Truss gets a video with inappropriate language put on his Funwall by a former student who is still in High School. He sends a private message politely asking the student why she thought that video would be appropriate to send to him. The former student replies very apologetically, and although she has not sent any other videos, she also did not ‘unfriend’ Mr. Truss. Do you think that she is now ‘more aware’ of who her audience is on Facebook?

I wrote this in the reflection section of a previous post:

If we (educators and parents) don’t participate with students online, then we run the risk of having misguided or inexperienced friends, or worse yet bullies, becoming greater influences than us in their lives. Gordon Neufeld calls it ‘peer orientation’ in his book: Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. This does not mean that we get ‘chummy’ with our students online… we are simply a significant adult presence, modeling appropriate behavior, and connecting with them in a meaningful, respectful way. The internet is no place for an unsupervised playground!

That said, as educators we are professionals and we have the need to be professional in our interactions with students… everywhere.

Principal Bruce Carabine and Technology and Curriculum Coordinator James McConville worked on some advice for educators who use Facebook. Here is what they came up with:

Be sure your profile is set-up in such a way that it is private. Only those you invite to be your friends should be allowed to view the content of your profile.

Make a decision about who is going to be in your friend’s group. If you are including current and former students, it’s a good idea take a conservative approach to the content of your page. Imagine the parents of one of your student’s were looking through it. Would they be comfortable with what they saw?

Perception is everything. You may want all of your students to be your friends on Facebook. Don’t be the one to invite them. Wait until they invite you to join their Facebook as a friend. Also, when they invite you, send them a ‘thank you for inviting me message’ so that you have a record of who invited whom.

Don’t download pictures of current and former students onto your hard drive.

Monitor regularly what others write on your wall. If there is anything that is inappropriate, remove it promptly. Be sure you deal with those who put questionable content on your site. Repeat offenders should be removed from your friend’s list.

We are thoughtful and intentional in our engagement with students in our schools and our classrooms… and we should be thoughtful and intentional in our engagement with students online.

The one thing that I’ve avoided so far is the idea of responsibility. Who is ultimately responsible for student behavior online? First and foremost I believe the answer to be the students themselves. Next in line should we want to take the ‘blame’ approach would be their parents. But I’m not interested in blame. I’m interested in students being respectful citizens in all of my communities, on and offline. I also choose to accept some responsibility and care for what goes on in my communities.

As I mentioned before, Dave Sands does some parent presentations:

The presentation delivers a number of key ideas: Technology feeds student needs. Technology isn’t going away. Parents need to figure out what they value, and they need to understand and engage with the technology their kids are using. If parents want influence with their children, they are far more likely to get it engaging from the inside rather than policing from the outside.

Take note educators… we too are far more likely to engage students from the inside rather than policing from the outside!

The irony of it all is that I don’t really like Facebook, and I don’t really use it that much. I choose to show students a limited, and rather boring profile on Facebook. So the reality is that since I have a large digital footprint, students can find out a lot more about me in many other places besides Facebook.

What I do like about Facebook is that it has allowed me to have some really amazing interactions that I may never have had otherwise: Students sharing something they have learned with me; A former student that I was really worried about reconnecting with me, and thus I’m able to see him doing well for himself; A former student telling me that as a teacher I made ‘ the biggest difference in her life’.

…And I’ve been able to teach some impromptu lessons about appropriate online behavior along the way. So far, every time that I’ve mentioned something that I thought was inappropriate in my Facebook community, I have received an apology or removal of the inappropriate content, and not once have I been removed as a friend as a result.

So I ask you… should we be told ‘as educators’ that we should remove our Facebook profiles? Is this something we should fear? Should we engage with our students online? Or should we just police the bullies and support the victims after the fact?

___

*Update: I followed up on some of these ideas in my post Facebook Revisited which was inspired by a teacher asking me “How do you feel about adding students as friends on Facebook?”.

The task was simple: Have your advisory pick an issue in the school and then create a video that promotes awareness of the problem and/or a solution to the problem. This is what Mr. Williams’ advisory came up with last year.

I like the use of camera direction to help tell the story. This to me is great storytelling… which is almost a lost art. Videos like this tell the story more by design than by content. Oh, and like all other Advisory projects this was not done for marks, yet you can tell the students were enthusiastic about participating.

Storytelling is something we should all spend more time on… as educators and students!

I apologize in advance for the clinical nature of my description below… these are students currently in my class, and this blog is open for anyone to read.

Background: Student 1 is male; Students 2 & 3 are female. Student 1 and 2 ‘dated’ earlier in the year. Student 1 and 3 are good friends… “But that’s all!”

The incident: Student 1 (who is in my first class) does not log out of his Science Alive! wiki account. Student 2 (who is in my second class) goes onto the same computer and realizes that Student 1 is not logged out. She writes a wiki mail message that she addresses to all students in Science Alive! (almost 60 kids in 2 classes). Here is the message:

from	[Student 1]
to	members of sciencealive
date	May 3, 2007 1:42 pm
subject	most horrible secret!
	I TOTALLY LOVE [STUDENT 3]!

Unfortunately I was not in class when this happened- I was at a Math Learning Team meeting.

This message got to Student 3 (also in the second class) quickly. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and confronted Student 1 about this – she realized it wasn’t him because at the time of the incident he did not have access to a computer. After coming back to class and doing some more digging, she discovered who sent the message. Then this new message came along:

from	[Student 2]
to	members of sciencealive
date	May 3, 2007 2:06 pm
subject	sorry folks
	i sent [student 1's] message totally sorry! i throw myself on [student 3's] & [student 1's] mercy… it was a bad joke swear i won’t do it again!

I find all of this out the same evening via an e-mail from Student 3. She is very upset!

---

What did I do? Well, the first thing I did was make this an office issue.

(A little digression here as I look at what makes something an office issue.)

In 9 years as a teacher I have made very few classroom issues into office issues. I have 4 D’s that I think are issues that should be dealt with at an office level. The first two D’s are cut-and-dry/immediate office issues. These are ‘no-brainers’, you break these rules and you go to the office!

1. Drugs- Alcohol is included in this category;

2. Dangerous- Not just weapons, but physical violence too. The best policy is a zero-tolerance policy… We don’t solve problems this way. (Sorry President Bush, but I’d be sending you to the office);

The next 2 D’s have some grey area between being an issue for the office and being an issue that I handle myself. They are:

3. Defiance- an absolute refusal to participate and/or co-operate. If you don’t come to class prepared to learn, or if you aren’t willing to participate with the class… If you can’t offer me 5% of what I am offering you, then that probably hinders my ability to give everyone else the time and attention they deserve. I obviously can’t help you, so there is no reason for you to be here. I’ve only ever had one student absolutely refuse to engage in learning to this point. I honestly felt that it was a disservice to keep him in the class and made this the reason to send him to the office. (I have used this as ‘leverage’ with other students in the past- not an ideal strategy, but sometimes a student needs to know that you have limits);

and the final ‘D’,

4. Disrespect- If you are going to treat me, or others in a way that is hurtful, if you are going to ‘injure’ others emotionally/socially… then we have a problem. Hitting someone, or physically hurting someone puts you in the ‘Dangerous’ category and becomes an immediate office referral. Disrespect on the other hand is a little different. If you emotionally or socially injure someone then you are defying one or two of our school beliefs : Respect and/or Inclusion.

So why was this act of disrespect an office issue? Because it was bullying! It may not satisfy the dictionary definition of bullying, ‘to use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone)’, but it injured someone’s dignity in a very public way. To me bullying of any kind, like physical violence, should have a zero-tolerance policy. If I dealt with this on my own, then I would be offering a perception that this is easily fixed… and it isn’t. From Nails in Fence (from my Teaching Metaphors):

“When you say things in anger, they leave a scar… You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.” A verbal wound can be just as bad as a physical one.”

This act, whether done simply as a joke, or with hurtful intentions, was wrong on many levels, from identity theft with the use of Student 1′s account to social embarrassment of Student 3, (and Student 1 as well). It is cyberbullying because it used technology as the medium to bully.

---

For my class, the first thing I did (while still at home) was to send out a wiki mail message to everyone. Basically it said, ‘Don’t use wiki mail until we get a chance to talk tomorrow.’ I didn’t want it used to perpetuate any more issues or, for that matter, gossip.

Next, I changed my lesson plans for Science. It was our last day for the project, (talk about putting a damper on the whole thing), and our school dance was scheduled for the afternoon so I thought this would be a great opportunity to have a lesson about bullying and cyberbullying.

Here is my Daily Agenda for Science Alive!

---

Friday May 4th, 2007 Today we will take a break to talk about a serious issue… Cyberbullying! We are having this talk because of a specific wiki ‘mail’ issue. However, please realize that the specific issue is being dealt with appropriately… talking about an issue that has already been dealt with can be equally as hurtful. If you scroll down to March 30th, you will see that we already discussed Cyberbullying. Also, please check out April 16th to see that we brought up our school beliefs, which we first talked about when blogging and also very early on in this project, on March 16th. So, we will talk about the many faces of Bullying and Cyberbullying today- an appropriate conversation before our dance… and we will do a reflective assignment on Science Alive! on Monday. Also, I will give you until Monday to put last touches on your wiki pages! (This was something I was planning to do anyway! -Use the time well!)

---

Normally I would be equally as clinical talking about this situation with my class, so as not to single out the involved students, however this specific issue was fully public already since every student received all the mail messages mentioned above.

Once I went over the situation, I emphasized that the issue has been taken to the office and is indeed being dealt with appropriately, and that my lesson goes well beyond this one incident.

Why is this an important step? If I don’t do this, then I am a bully too! I am ostracizing Student 2, and I don’t want to do this! She is a wonderful kid who made a bad choice… “Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone”. I’ve made some very stupid choices/decisions in my life. In the hockey game we call life, I’d like to think that I have a good plus/minus when it comes to good choices I’ve made versus bad, but that doesn’t negate the bad choices as if they never existed. Student 2 made a bad choice, she is not a bad person!

Next in the agenda, I specifically mentioned other times that we discussed similar topics for two reasons, first to further distance my lesson from the specific issue, and then also to show everyone that this is an important issue that needs to be discussed on a regular basis.

Also, rather than having students reading this agenda on their own computer as I have done in the past, I had this on the projector screen, and I did not scroll down enough for students to see that I was extending the due date of the assignment. I wanted them focused.

So, the lesson involved 3 videos from Youtube, with a discussion after each. Here are the videos:

I think the discussions went well in both classes. I think I made students see that there are many faces to bullying… it is a continuum. I tried to convey that the choices they make influence others, whether we intend for this to happen or not. I hope that I helped students to see that we have a responsibility to make a positive rather than negative difference in the world, and that often we can do so with very little effort.

I also spoke of the etiquette around asking someone to dance, and turning someone down politely. I admitted to being turned down for dances many times in my life, and that I appreciated when it was done in a nice way. I reminded them that saying yes to a dance was a 2-3 minute commitment, not a lifetime one. On the other side of the spectrum, 2-3 minutes is an eternity if someone is groping you or touching you inappropriately- you have every right to stop a dance early in that case. This was a ‘light’ way to end a very heavy conversation, without losing sight of the main ideas I wanted to get across.

An important note: What were student 2′s consequences? She was not permitted to go to the dance. Also, on Monday or Tuesday she must report back to the office, along with Student 3, and state whether they have been able to come to an acceptable resolution. If they haven’t, the next step is that they can choose to have peer mediators involved. Barring that, it will become an office issue again, but I’m confident it won’t get to that point.

A side note: Student 3 stayed back after class and thanked me for giving this the attention that I did.

A final note: It would not have been too hard to handle this situation on my own. However, I think that making a very public issue such as this into an office concern raises the profile of such an incident. It validates that such behavior is simply not tolerated in our school!

Originally posted: May 6th, 2007 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: [Student 2] admitted to me about a week later that she actually felt a little bullied herself by my very public discussion, over two classes, about this issue. It was a great conversation because I got to apologize and, for the first time, she really saw how intent and consequences did not always match. She meant to be funny with hurtful consequences, I too ended up with hurtful consequences. It was a valuable lesson for both of us! I was invited to be her friend on Facebook this summer and I saw that both Student 1 and Student 3 are also her online friends. Comments from the original post Hi David,Thanks for sharing your story. You mention that you tell your students that they have a chance to make a positive difference. That’s just what you did by grabbing such an important teachable moment. As a mom & a former middle school teacher, I have to say that you are one in a million. Carolyn on Sunday, 06 May 2007, 15:04 CEST Thank you for your kind words Carolyn! I was visiting my page on the StopCyberbullying Social Network on Ning and re-read what I wrote on my ‘Chatterwall’: “I think that IDEALLY cyberbullying should be something we expect not to happen, just as graffiti is. We don’t say, “Don’t write on the walls”, but it is understood when we look at basic rules and expectations. For now I think it should be mentioned. Here is where I could use some help: For my foray into using blogs and wikis in the clasrroom, I have tried my best to keep the rules very simple… Respect, Inclusion, Learning and Safety Well, it isn’t enough to just expect cyberbullying to ‘not happen’ without making reference to it. My rules on Respect and Inclusion do not mention specific ‘infractions’ and so I wonder, do I mention cyberbullying in the rules, or do I just teach about it?” I am a fan of telling students ‘what to do’ rather than ‘what not to do’ however, now I realize that yes, indeed, counter-examples are needed. I think this is the case because many students are interacting with each other in new ways with these Web2.0 tools, and a social faux pas is not as obvious as graffiti painted on a wall. Once again, thank you so much for your thoughtful comment Carolyn, Dave. David Truss on Monday, 07 May 2007, 06:32 CEST You were right to make this an office issue. As much as I don’t like dealing with these as an administrator, these are the issue that help to define the culture and atmosphere of the school. As an administrator, it also helps to have discussions with teachers who are dealing with these issues to know where they stand and what they are doing. By continuing to discuss this with students and creating an environment of learning from mistakes, you have allowed the students to see that mistakes happen, they sometimes hurt people and we need to fix them. You allowed the student to see that they aren’t bad – ALL of us make mistakes. It’s the learning that is important. That is why the place we are in is called school! Kelly Christopherson on Sunday, 13 May 2007, 08:40 CEST

How is a post inspired? Where do the seeds of thought that blossom into these very words come from?

• I have a student in my class that is currently on a very unhealthy diet. I know that I cannot convince her to get off of it without replacing it in some way. I hunt down my copy of Anthony Robbin’s ‘Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement‘ because I remember that it has a very well executed, healthy eating strategy. I find the book and it has a few paper bookmarks in it from a couple decades ago. From the page with the first bookmark:

… you will enrich your world and enrich your work if you bring to it the same curiosity and vitality you bring to your play.

• I read Claudia Ceraso’s insightful post, Blogging So Far , (I like her blogger’s view of Google). I realize that like Claudia, I too have had my blog for 1 year. I follow the links and come across a few “5 reasons I blog” posts… not my kind of post to write, but interesting to read. [From Claudia's post]

A blog is a learning engine
A node in your PLE (personal learning environment ). A virtual zone of proximal development . Learning happens when you connect to other people (other, meaning diverse , not just a group of different people). Reading alone with my books is half way to learning. I need to ask. If the author cannot be consulted anymore, I’d much rather find what their readers are writing in blogs. Always connecting, constructing, learning.

• I re-read Christopher D. Sessums’ How Do Educators Learn Successful Practices Using Social Media/Social Software? and I comment: [Exerpt from the comment]

In my attempt to (im)migrate into a web2.0 user/participant it has been the informal learning that has been most beneficial/rewarding. For example, your post: Competing Paradigms and Educational Reform struck a chord with me almost a year ago, and prompted me to quote you on my fledgeling blog. It was one of a number of influences that has made me questions my practice and the practice of schools.

I am now trying to bring Science Alive for my students in a way I never dreamed I could before… But this did not come from any formal community. It came from a loosely bound community of learners, unequally nurturing and feeding off of each other. It came from a digital web-path of hyperlinks which has helped construct meaning and relationships not easily discovered in a linear learning environment.

I think it is the informal learning experiences: the resourceful, interest-driven meandering between, among and within more formal communities/conferences/platforms and collaboration opportunities that has been most meaningful to me.

In essence I have become an empowered learner!

… This comment isn’t just another seed, it is the roots. It is what this post is about. It is why I blog.

The gardening

I start to make the connections between these seedling ideas.

• ‘Vitality‘. My blog is not work, it is play. Play from which I have the benefit of enhancing what I do in my classroom, in my daily job… which in turn provides even more vitality.

• ‘Always connecting, constructing, learning‘. I haven’t been able to finish my book for our book club because I read for 5 minutes and my eyes/my brain are craving a hyperlink… the lateral shifts in thinking that help me synthesize and add meaning to what I read. I want to interact with my reading, have it engage me. (See the ‘Read a reading’ section of Claudia’s post.)

• ‘An empowered learner‘. I choose. I link. I follow links. I follow my own agenda. I change my agenda because something interests me now. I change my mind. ‘I’ control my learning… and I have never in my life enjoyed learning as much as I have since I started truly ‘blogging’ a few months ago.

The bloom

So how is a post inspired? I find seeds of inspiration, let them germinate in my mind, and a new post has blossomed.

---

---

“Because we all need to take a stand…”

Today is Stop Cyberbullying Day – Friday March 30th, 2007

Here is a great site.

Originally posted: March 30th, 2007 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: This kind of learning is so rich, and it is so diametrically opposed to traditional school learning. Hyperlinks bring learning alive for me… they give me choice. How do we give students choice about their learning in school? How do we empower them as learners? - – - Comments from my original post: I’ve also just found a great post on Anne Davis site, http://anne.teachesme.com/2007/03/28/student-to-student-blogging- – with a list of questions for novice bloggers to ask experienced bloggers. Emma Duke-Williams on Friday, 30 March 2007, 17:38 CEST  DavidArrived here to your post through the blog reactions widget. From now on, I will call it seed tracker. I confess I had many doubts before publishing my ‘Blogging so Far’ post. It was a kind of stream of consciousness that made me wonder how much sense would readers make of it. I was talking to myself. Later the same day I found this http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/03/28/christine-hunewells-a-blogger-as-writer/ And I simply had to leave a comment. This empowered learning as you say can point to so many directions, I think it is good to post about it and let others get into conversations with our thoughts. Happy bloganniversary! Claudia Ceraso on Saturday, 31 March 2007, 02:02 CEST  Emma,  Thank you for the link, I really do appreciate it!  Claudia, How serendipitous… When I first read your post, (one of my ‘seeds’), I followed some links within your links and came across Christine Hunewell’s a blogger as writer. When composing my post, I spent about half an hour looking for it, it really was another seed to my post! … and here we are full circle with you, once again, providing me the link- thankfully the path is more direct this time. With respect to your ‘stream of consciousness’ writing… I believe that state is an ideal writing state, and that some of my best writing has come when I have written to/for myself. Thank you for your comment, and your wonderfully inspiring post! David Truss on Saturday, 31 March 2007, 04:36 CEST

Until last year, this odd negative/neon image was the only public image you could find of me on the web. In fact currently, many of my online sites still have this image. I like the photo, people who know me recognize me in it, and it was taken on a hot air balloon trip with my wife, so it has fond memories attached. But I decided that since I have been very public with my thoughts and ideas, (as seen on this blog), I would share a bit more of who I am, while on the web. Slowly but surely I have been putting photos on the web with a greater likeness to me. Now I wonder if I should go back to this image? I wonder if I should make my family photos private again? Also, I am keenly aware that at some point in the future I may need to moderate comments on this blog, and I find that sad.

Today I read a horribly upsetting Kathy Sierra post on the Creating Passionate Users blog. Kathy has been the victim of some anonymous, vulgar, sexist vandals… that have gone so far as to issue death threats. I am not linking to the actual post since, although I truly empathize with how difficult this has been for her, I don’t like the approach of the post. Kathy shares, in detail, all of the words, images and internet pseudonyms of the people that have put her in considerable distress. Personally, I think that gives the vandals too much credit/recognition that they certainly don’t deserve (I said this in one of the 1,000+ comments currently on this post).

This comes after reading Kelly Christopherson’s post Masked Commentors just over a week ago. As he states about the first comment on his school blog, “it wasn’t necessarily positive and it used a bit of profanity… I know that even these comments have nuggets that I need to mine and use to become a better leader and person.”

I must admit to having difficulty seeing the nuggets sometimes. Instead, I see the miner covered in soot.

I got hit with this kind of abuse a couple years ago. I have a website that I go to for drawing faces in art. I used to sign my work with a pseudonym rather than my real name when I saved portraits that I created into the public gallery, (I expected the same from my students). I would use these saved images in the following years as examples of what students could do. Two years ago when I did a search for my pseudonym in the gallery there were derogatory sketches and comments that came up in the search that were directly aimed at ‘Mr. Truss’.

Neither of these last two situations compare with the anguish that Kathy is experiencing… in fact she may very well depart from the blogosphere as a result of this… (which would be horrible, and I am saddened by the potential loss). However, these situations do make me think of the potential perils of teachers and administrators having a public face on the internet. It only takes one malicious person to be hurtful, one ‘bad apple’ to spoil the pie.

This is fairly easy to do with an angry person… simply choose not to engage in their dirty approach.

However these kind of hurtful, hateful on-line vandals bring the mud to the fight. They hurl it at you and get you dirty whether or not you choose to engage. Combating this is not easy: It takes courage, it takes thick skin, it takes effort to choose a moral stance; to avoid slinging mud. As a result, it leaves me wondering… How do you stop these malicious people from getting the best of you? Beyond not giving the offenders any credit or notoriety, and beyond ‘turning the other cheek’, what else can be done?

- – - – -

Anti-Cyberbullying Day – Friday, March 30th, 2007

Originally posted: March 28th, 2007 Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: I just recently referenced this post, and used the ‘wrestle with a pig’ quote in a comment on a Clay Burell post. (I would like to link to Dan Meyer’s post too- the lessons learned in any conflict are usually found in attempts at resolution.) I mention this here because I think Clay touched on the question that I ended the post with. Sometimes a fight is what is needed. Sometimes standing up for yourself is necessary. Sometimes expressing your dissatisfaction can be helpful, even healthy. - – - – - I thought this next point was going to be the subject of a new post, but I’ll share it here now: ‘Be Careful What You Say Online!” A few months ago my blog on Eduspaces ended up getting referenced in German, Italian, and also in the language of Bahasa (I had a student’s mom translate it for me:-) I ‘del.icio.us-ed’ these (for myself-not shared) and in the ‘notes’ section made comments about the reference. Shortly after the reference in Bahasa, I was quoted in a Spanish blog*. I was amazed that there was “yet another reference to my blog” in another language “that I don’t understand”, and what you see in quotes is roughly what my notes on delicious said. It was meant as a private note to myself, and its’ intent was astonishment at my sudden international link-love. Well, it turns out that I did not click the ‘do not share’ check-box. And suddenly I had a very public, and easily interpreted as flippant or rude, note about someone’s blog… someone who took that time to write very positively about both me and my blog. This person, (who remains anonymous here because I did not ask first if I could share this), found my delicious link reference and wrote me an email that stated how rude my note was… and I have to agree, “yet another reference to my blog that I don’t understand” is hardly a polite comment to come across! Two quotes that have served me well in my life are: “Think Good Thoughts, Say Good Words, Do Good Deeds.“ and “The meaning of communication is the response that you get.“ My thoughts were good, my words were poor, and I needed to apologize. What I communicated was not my intention, and the response clearly told me of MY error. I have since apologized, but still feel regret for my poor choice of words. It was a very real reminder that there is an underlying responsibility for what we put online. “Stand Up!“ The hidden lesson in this takes me back to my post above and what Clay and the e-mail I received can tell us: When we feel wronged it is vital to ‘stand up’ and say so! I believe that the art and skill of communication is deciding how to do this. Having said that, I think that both Clay and Dan could have handled their issue better, but who am I to ‘cast a stone‘? Clay felt wronged and spoke up. My blog referencer felt wronged and spoke up. Sometimes it isn’t enough to ‘turn a cheek’ or a ‘blind eye’. Sometimes we need to let others know that we feel wronged. On the other side of the fence, sometimes we need to apologize and mean it… and sometimes we need to do more than that to make things right! *[Update: Please see the first comment on this new post by Gabriela Sellart. I did not initially name her as the author of the Spanish-Written Post that I del.icio.us-ed because I wrote this after midnight and had not asked her if she wanted this to be public. Her comment is both honest, and insightful and pays tribute to the point of this reflection. Thanks (again) Gabriela!] - – - – - A final note: Kelly’s comment on my original post brings up the point that we need to teach these life-lessons to students: Dave, I agree that what is happening to Kathy is completely different than what has happened to me. My suspicion is that I have a student who likes to vent and this is their forum for doing so. It is a chance to talk about being anonymous and using pseudonyms when on the net. We truly need to discuss this in our classrooms, our schools, our communities and our nation. It is important that, with the dawning of a new era in communication and “community” building, we do not permit people like those who are bullying Kathy. For someone to do such a thing is truly a criminal offense. I agree with the stop cyberbullying campaign and will pass this on to all the teachers in my school. As educators, we need to take this to our students and go beyond. There is a lesson here that is greater than any curriculum we teach – it is about life, freedom and respect. Thanks for the message Dave! Kelly Christopherson - – - – - Think good thoughts, say good words, do good deeds. Peace.