Two South Carolina school districts—Fort Mill Schools and the Clover School District—are among the latest to take aim at social media companies for their negative impact on students. The lawsuit targets Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, Snapchat and Google, which owns YouTube.

“We’re hopeful that this will maybe help some of these companies put in some extra safeguards for kids,” Chief Communication Officer of Fort Mill Schools Joe Burke told WCNC. “We heard last night that a lot of kids on this platform are in the 8 to 12 range which shouldn’t even be on those platforms.”

Also this week, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new mental health advisory addressing social media use and its effects on youth mental health.

“We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis—one that we must urgently address,” Murthy said in a statement.

While social media poses a clear and immediate threat to students, as the headlines suggest, do school districts stand a chance in their fight to reduce the risk?

Dr. Aaron Saiger, professor of law at Fordham University, says their chances may be slim.

“I am not optimistic about the success of these lawsuits,” he says. “Many, many products have adverse effects on children that create costs for schools. These costs include, but are not limited to, mental health problems for students. Without making any claims about relative magnitude, products that come immediately to mind include television shows, phones, sugary foods, sneakers and music. All of these products arguably harm children but also bring value—which includes enjoyment—to their users.”

He adds that we’ve seen these heightened states of fear and “moral panic” before surrounding new behaviors and technologies that young children take a liking to.

“TV shows, rock music and video games have all been viewed by adults as a scourge that needed to be stopped lest they destroy children and childhood,” he says. “In earlier periods, these conflicts played out over genres like films and even novels. This is not to deny that new kinds of entertainment often do create new problems. They do. But they also create value that hidebound adults cannot—or do not want—to see.”

That being said, he doesn’t think the lawsuits are “preposterous.” If a company produces a potentially harmful product and doesn’t take measures to mitigate the negative effects it has on its audience, they’re responsible for it.

“A company is liable for placing a dangerous product on the market if it failed to take reasonable steps to mitigate the danger its products pose, or if its product is so ‘inherently’ dangerous that the dangers vastly outweigh whatever compensating value it offers,” he explains. “My lay understanding of social media is that it is not the latter; social media provides an enormous value to many people, including children.”

“I do not know whether there are ways to mitigate the bad effects of social media on children that would be realistically achievable and reasonably effective,” he adds. “For example, could companies actually enforce minimum age requirements, and would that help mental health? If there are such steps, social media companies would be wise to take them. But such steps, to be reasonably effective in this context, cannot destroy the value of the product.”

More from DA: By the numbers: The pandemic and its ‘complicated’ toll on K12 education

Another complex element is the idea that students are seemingly addicted to social media, something that Murthy points out in his advisory.

“Small studies have shown that people with frequent and problematic use can experience changes in brain structure similar to changes seen in individuals with substance use or gambling addictions,” the advisory reads.

Another national survey revealed that one-third of girls ages 11-15 reported feeling “addicted” to a social media platform. But according to Saiger, it’s a loaded term in this context.

“It comes from medicine and implies a physical dependency,” he says. “Courts might well hold that it is per se unreasonable to try purposely to ‘addict’ children. But companies are entitled to design products that consumers enjoy using and therefore want to use more of.”

But the lawsuits clearly put pressure on social media companies, he notes. As with the general surgeon’s advisory, they stir public conversation and potential regulatory intervention, regardless of whether the lawsuits are dropped or resolved in favor of the company.

“They might also motivate state and federal regulators to look into the issue,” he says. “The companies might reasonably look for proactive measures that would satisfy some of the districts’ complaints in order to head off adverse regulatory action. This could look like a win to the districts.”

The post Do school districts stand a chance suing social media giants? appeared first on District Administration.

More than 1,150 responses from school staff who are responsible for school-home communications in schools and districts shared their thoughts on the best social media platforms, communicating with families who don’t speak English and the heightened attention they are paying to branding and marketing. Nearly 75% of the staffers noted that marketing and branding are now top or leading priorities, particularly as schools face increased competition for enrollment and work to recruit new teachers, according to “Benchmark Survey: What’s Working for School Communications and Engagement.”

District leaders are also redoubling their efforts to connect with all of their students’ families, as less than 40% report reaching all or most of their families regularly. Another communications priority is integrating student information systems, school and district websites and other software to improve efficiency and remove redundancy.

Unifying communications through the school website, for instance, means content can be created once and distributed through multiple channels simultaneously. “Most education leaders value families as important partners in the learning community, and they understand that the ability to have consistent, meaningful two-way conversations is key to educational equity and student success,” ParentSquare President and Founder Anupama Vaid said.

Administrators and their teams identified six keys to more effective school communication and engagement:

1. Email and text continue to be the most effective channels: As email, texts and mobile apps are the most popular tools, the use of school websites, portals and social media channels is declining. And only about one in five of the survey’s respondents said voice calls were effective. Video apps such as Zoom ranked at the bottom along with printed flyers and newsletters.

2. Facebook continues to dominate in social media: Facebook is the most popular social media channel with more than 70% of survey’s respondents, and Instagram is a distant second. YouTube and TikTok, meanwhile, are losing ground.

3. Reaching all parents and guardians continues to be a challenge: More than 10% reported that they do not track the number of families with whom they regularly communicate while about 15% only connect with 50% to 75% of parents and guardians. A unified messaging platform can help schools both reach more families and determine levels of engagement, the study asserts.

4. Communicating with non-English speaking families is a challenge: Only about half of those surveyed feel they are communicating with parents who don’t speak English. About 20% of schools support outreach in English and Spanish while a similar number can communicate in several languages.

5. Still work to be done in integrating communication tools with other systems: More than 40% affirmed their communication tools are integrated with their websites and more than half of those surveyed reported tracking contactability and engagement. In many cases, this integration includes emergency alerts, news and other time-sensitive communications. And capacity is increasing as schools continue to expand and upgrade their digital networks.

More from DA: These 2 barriers are getting in the way of K12 leaders’ pursuit of equity

6. District and school branding growing in importance: Schools are now working constantly to recruit new families and teachers. School leaders report a need to share the highlights of the learning experiences they offer with a much wider audience. But only about a third of those surveyed said their branding has “a consistent look and feel.” These districts provide all their schools with easily adaptable graphics and templates.

“The ongoing transition from paper to digital communications is helping to bring about new efficiencies and integrations for districts, while also making it easier to engage families in support of each student,” Vaid concluded.

The post 6 keys to successful school communication and engagement in the digital age appeared first on District Administration.

Nearly four in 10 girls, for example, report suffering symptoms of depression, and among these girls, social media has an outsize impact—both positively and negatively, according to a new report, “How Girls Really Feel About Social Media,” by Common Sense, the influential nonprofit media watchdog. Also, a majority of girls of color report finding identity-affirming content on social media but about half also encounter racism while online.

Girls and female students who are already struggling with mental health problems are more likely to have bad experiences on social media. But the most heavily-used platforms—YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and various messaging apps—also provide a source of community, support and even mental health resources, according to Common Sense’s survey.

Girls also use words such as entertainment and fun, creativity and self-expression, discovery and social activism to describe the benefits of social media. “We must determine how to reduce risks while optimizing benefits, how to minimize the negative aspects while maximizing the positive ones, and how to do so in a way that accounts for the needs of those who are most vulnerable,” Common Sense urges in its report.

More from DA: Black and Latino superintendents seek the nation’s help on 2 education crises

Overall, a majority of girls believe that features like location sharing, endless scrolling, and appearance filters have an effect “but they’re split on whether those effects are positive or negative,” the report says.

Before we get to the recommendations, here is what Common Sense found about how girls are using social media:

1. Adolescent girls spend over two hours per day on TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat, and more than 90 minutes on Instagram and messaging apps.
2. Nearly half (45%) of girls who use TikTok say they feel “addicted” to the platform or use it more than intended. Almost one in three girls (30%) who use Snapchat say they feel daily pressure to be available or responsive to peers.
3. Seven out of 10 adolescent girls of color who use TikTok (71%) or Instagram (72%) report encountering positive or identity-affirming content related to race at least monthly on these platforms, but nearly half also report exposure to racist content or language on those apps.
4. Across platforms, LGBTQ+ adolescents are roughly twice as likely as non-LGBTQ+ adolescents to encounter hate speech related to sexual or gender identity, but they are also more likely to find connections.
5. Girls say they encounter helpful mental health content more often than harmful content. But among girls with moderate or severe depressive symptoms, roughly seven in 10 who use Instagram (75%) and TikTok (69%) say they come across problematic suicide-related content at least monthly on these platforms.
6. The majority of girls who use Instagram and Snapchat say they’ve been contacted by a stranger on these platforms in ways that make them uncomfortable.

Social media and mental health: The solutions

Common Sense’s first recommendation for educators is to include girls in the problem-solving process. “Debates surrounding social media often spark controversy and concern, yet rarely are young people themselves part of these discussions,” the report says. “Girls are more likely to say that their lives would be ‘worse,’ rather than ‘better,’ without social media.”

This means that educators, when helping girls navigate social media and mental health, must strike a “delicate balance” that includes zeroing in on some of the design features of particular apps. For example, TikTok’s vast library of algorithmically driven video content is likely why girls feel addicted to the platform and why they spend more time on it than intended. TikTok is also more likely to interfere with girls’ sleep, the report says.

Messaging apps, on other hand, put pressure on girls to be available to respond to peers. And girls also say they are more likely to report unwanted contact by strangers on their Instagram and Snapchat public accounts. Finally, girls are more likely to say location sharing and public accounts are harmful while they have mixed opinions on features such as appearance filters.

Any solutions, therefore, should take into account curtailing access to some of these features.

The post How to make social media a force for good for girls in your schools appeared first on District Administration.

Dr. Don Killingbeck, superintendent of Hemlock Public Schools in Michigan, has been in the tech game since the early 90s. When he’s not judging beard competitions, authoring books using ChatGPT or jump roping on a world-class level, he’s advocating for his community through the power of one simple tool: a camera.

In its fifth season, Killingbeck’s “OTS” (over the shoulder) series has captured the voices of nearly 50 employees and folks within the community, all in an effort to break down silos and share the day-to-day of those within the district.

“I had the desire to connect the community with our school district,” he says. “Especially back when I initiated it five years ago, I was nervous. I didn’t want to be in front of the camera, so I was trying to figure out a way to introduce and interview people in our community but without having it to be my face. I’m a producer. I don’t like the spotlight in front of the camera all the time.”

Every video is uploaded to his YouTube channel, but he says Facebook is where they get the most traction.

“Facebook moms make up most of our viewership,” he says. “The YouTube channel is more so historical storage and probably 10% of our viewing audience. Most of it comes through Facebook, but we feel it’s important to log and have it systematically available on YouTube.”

Since starting the series, it’s allowed him to really key in on one area that every superintendent must master: listening.

“I’ve learned that there’s a lot to learn and grow,” he says. “Anytime I talk to somebody when you’re doing it in that setting, you’re really focused on listening, right? You’re the interviewer. It forces me as a leader to be a better listener.”

It’s an over-the-shoulder series for a reason, he adds. It’s not the district superintendent delivering a message in front of a camera for 20 minutes. It’s an organic, employee-focused conversation.

Unfortunately, there’s a certain stigma that surrounds social media that seems to be shared across district leaders, according to Killingbeck. It’s a love-hate relationship that superintendents must overcome because the rewards outweigh the problems. The challenge, however, is the lack of proper protocol and etiquette of all stakeholders when there’s frustration with the district.

“If you’re upset or there’s a problem, posting something on Facebook or Twitter is not necessarily the proper method of dealing with your problems,” he says. “If you’ve got a problem, you should call your school official, the building principal, the superintendent or a teacher. It could be something as simple as an email saying, ‘Hey, can we talk? I’ve got a concern.’ And I think this is why some [leaders] are afraid of social media to this day. We find that our stakeholders go to social media and use it in a negative way. We’ve been very fortunate where I am not to have a ton of that. But when I talk to other leaders, they get rather scared sometimes by that.”

Changing your outlook on social media, he advises, can make a world’s difference. In reality, it’s all about perspective and how you intend to use it within your district.

“The number one thing is to think of your organization’s social media as a bank account,” he says. “When somebody puts something out negative, that’s a withdrawal, right? My question to other leaders is what are you doing to positively communicate what you’re doing? You have to advocate for your organization. You have to be you.”

More from DA: How this superintendent uses social media to establish credibility

The post Superintendents’ love-hate relationship with social media: How to navigate it appeared first on District Administration.

Dr. Joe Sanfelippo, superintendent of the Fall Creek School District in Wisconsin, is a one-minute walk away from his school. On most Saturday mornings, he ventures over to the school to get some work done. And walks are a great time to think and reflect. So one day he decided to take out his phone and began recording his thoughts out loud. Thus, sparking the creation of his #1minwalk2work series.

“It just started taking off and it grew organically,” he says. “People wanted to hear stories about what was happening in the school.”

For him, it was a way to dish out some quick and easily digestible leadership tips for others to learn from, but also to reflect on his own experiences as superintendent.

“How can I learn from some of the mistakes I made and put them out there and be vulnerable,” he says. “Maybe other leaders will be willing to say, ‘Hey, maybe I don’t know everything.’”

Since starting the series, not only has he seen the impact it’s had on other leaders, but he’s grown as a leader himself.

“I think the first thing that I learned was that you don’t have to be right all the time,” he says. “You have to be real. The more that you try to be right, the less you can be real. Me going and doing these walks and being vulnerable enough to say, ‘Man I really screwed this thing up’ and talking about it because I don’t want you to screw it up as a leader in your space, I think is important. I think 90% of those thoughts are things that I messed up, and I’m just trying to figure out ways I can help out other people. The other 10% are things that were just really cool that happened to people in our building or to kids so we can amplify those voices too.”

For him, social media ought to play a substantial role in the lives of every superintendent. It creates transparency, or else your community simply won’t know what it is that you do.

“The idea that people need to keep in mind is when people don’t know what you do as a superintendent, they make up what you do as a superintendent,” he says. “If you are using social media to not only celebrate the great things that are happening in your district, but also give people a window into what you do as a leader in that space, then they’re less likely to start slamming you for things that they don’t know that you do, because you do a lot of things behind closed doors that people don’t hear about.”

What ends up happening in this scenario, he explains, is that you become less of a leader and more of a number.

“People start saying, ‘You know what, for all that money I don’t know what that person does,’” he says. “You’re the highest-paid person in your entire school district. You lose leadership credibility because people are asking what you’re actually doing in the space.”

It’s transparency that you should be able to control, he adds. As a superintendent, you will face scrutiny and critique. So why not let those critiques at least be accurate and reflective of the work that you actually do as shown through social media?

“The more that we can get that out there for people the better chance I think we all have to not only amplify, but also give ourselves some credibility in the work that we do,” he says.

More from DA: $30,000 a year is not enough for teachers. These states are fixing that

The post How this superintendent uses social media to establish credibility appeared first on District Administration.

Technology has so much to offer students. And while their phones may be seen as a distraction in the classroom, it’s a form of connection: It keeps them up-to-date on current events, gives them a safe space to explore their interests, and social media encourages young people to follow their dreams. That’s according to a recent study from The Social Institute, an online learning platform that aims to encourage students to take on the world with positivity.

And the better educators know their students and how they use technology, the easier it will become to implement engaging learning practices that work.

Based on a survey of nearly 23,000 public school students across the country, this is what students want you to know about their technology and social media use.

YouTube

For students in 4th through 12th grade, YouTube is their most popular app. What’s surprising is that TikTok, an app that educators frequently use to reach their students, is only the sixth most popular app among 6th- through 12th-graders.

Most popular devices

Understanding which devices students find most appealing is crucial for school districts. If you want to be able to truly reach a student, consider which screen their eyes are set on the most.

• School-issued technology
  • 9th-12th grade: 61%
  • 6th-8th grade: 80%
  • 4th-5th grade: 73%
• Television
  • 9th-12th grade: 65%
  • 6th-8th grade: 75%
  • 4th-5th grade: 77%
• Personal tablet
  • 9th-12th grade: 22%
  • 6th-8th grade: 44%
  • 4th-5th grade: 58%
• Smartphone
  • 9th-12th grade: 96%
  • 6th-8th grade: 79%
  • 4th-5th grade: 36%
• Personal desktop or laptop computer
  • 9th-12th grade: 64%
  • 6th-8th grade: 53%
  • 4th-5th grade: 38%
• Gaming device
  • 9th-12th grade: 38%
  • 6th-8th grade: 45%
  • 4th-5th grade: 47%
• Kindle, Nook, Fire, or other eReader
  • 9th-12th grade: 5%
  • 6th-8th grade: 9%
  • 4th-5th grade: 11%
• Smartwatch
  • 9th-12th grade: 22%
  • 6th-8th grade: 23%
  • 4th-5th grade: 20%
• Voice-activated assistant (Alexa, etc.)
  • 9th-12th grade: 25%
  • 6th-8th grade: 39%
  • 4th-5th grade: 41%

Skills students want to improve 

Aside from wanting teachers to understand how and why they use technology, students believe there’s more to learn in the classroom than the basic curriculum, among them:

1. Time management: 65%
2. Communication: 52%
3. Problem-solving: 43%
4. Growth mindset: 40%
5. Research skills: 32%
6. Teamwork: 27%
7. Processing current events: 24%
8. Empathy: 18%

More from DA: How to manage the looming threat of school shootings in 2023

The post 3 things students want you to know about their technology use appeared first on District Administration.

The district has filed a lawsuit against those four companies, with leaders saying they intend to hold the executives accountable for “the harm they have wreaked on the social, emotional, and mental health of students.”

Seattle administrators have placed social media at the root of a mental health crisis that saw growing well before the COVID outbreak in 2020. “Our students—and young people everywhere—face unprecedented, learning and life struggles that are amplified by the negative impacts of increased screen time, unfiltered content, and potentially addictive properties of social media,” Superintendent Brent Jones said in a district statement.

Nearly 50% of teenagers in Washington spent between one and three hours a day on social media, with 30% averaging even longer. Meanwhile, one in five children aged 13 to 17 now suffers from anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm, suicidal ideation and other mental health problems. Those disorders are being exacerbated by “excessive and problematic use of social media,” Seattle Public Schools noted.

Seattle Public Schools demands action

Screen time logged by youths 18 and younger increased by more than 50% during the pandemic, with the biggest increase seen among kids aged 12 to 18 years and for users of handheld devices and personal computers, according to an analysis published late last year by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“Pandemic recovery initiatives should focus on fostering healthy device habits, including moderating use, monitoring content, prioritizing device-free time, and using screens for creativity or connection,” the authors of the analysis wrote.

While Seattle’s schoolchildren are bearing the brunt of the crisis, the district’s counselors, social workers, psychologists, and nurses are being overwhelmed by the demand for student mental health care. Like many districts, Seattle Public Schools’ site-based clinics are one of the main providers of student mental health services.

And even though Seattle Public Schools has received an increase in funding for mental health services, administrators are contending that “taxpayers should not bear the burden for the mental health crisis social media companies have created.” “By taking aim at the social media companies, we are sending a clear message that it is time for them to prioritize the health of children over the revenues they make from advertising,” School Board President Brandon Hersey concluded.

More from DA: District CEO Goldson—‘I’m stepping away from dysfunctional school board’

The post Mental health crisis: Why Seattle schools are suing 4 social media giants appeared first on District Administration.

Even though the percentage of Facebook images that identified students was small, the posts that do name children publicly are likely chipping away at their privacy, said coauthor Joshua M. Rosenberg, an assistant professor of STEM education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “The posts we studied may represent the largest existing collection of publicly accessible, identifiable images of minors,” Rosenberg said. “It is likely that the photos are being accessed by a range of actors, including government agencies, predictive policing companies, and those with nefarious intent.”

Previous research has focused on whether posts by individual educators threatened student privacy but Rosenberg and his co-authors believe their study is the first to analyze school and district social media activity. The team used Facebook’s own data tracking tool, CrowdTangle, to search school and district homepages for links to images on Facebook.

While schools many may be posting photos to Facebook to connect with their communities and display student achievements and other uplifting news, the analysis also pointed to some unsettling, if unintended, consequences: Australia’s online safety agency has, for example, reported that tens of millions of harmless images of minors shared on social media have been downloaded and saved on child exploitation sites. Also, U.S. government agencies scan social media to monitor immigration, predict crime risks and track users’ social connections, the analysis cautions.

And putting a school’s Facebook photo through Google’s reverse image search could lead to more online sources of a student’s personally identifiable information. “The threat to privacy will continue to grow, perhaps quickly, due to expanding facial recognition technology,” Rosenberg, added.

Rosenberg and his coauthors offer practical steps school leaders can take to mitigate student privacy risks:

• Never include students’ full names in posts.
• Ask parents to opt into the sharing of their children’s information on school social media (instead of asking them to opt out).
• Make it easy for parents to request that photos of their children be removed from school social media pages.
• Make school or district pages private.

Facebook and social media companies could help K-12 leaders better safeguard student privacy by changing their default settings so schools’ social media pages are made private automatically. This step would “drastically reduce” the risk of student information being collected at a large scale for unintended uses. “While parents and schools can take steps to protect student privacy, it is also the responsibility of social media platforms and the wider society to ensure that policies and regulations keep pace with rapidly evolving technology,” Rosenberg said.

More from DA: Who is on the positive side of the growing gender gap in education?

The post Student privacy: Are photos in school Facebook posts putting it at risk? appeared first on District Administration.

Take Snapchat—while it may make some educators cringe, developing tools for the platform can be a great way to teach students the coding and creativity skills required for digital marketing—which is a major growth industry, says Tasha Penwell, the founder of Ohio-based Bytes and Bits and a computer science coach.

“Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms and it has a diverse age range,” says Penwell, who will give the presentation, “Snap Into It: Bring Snapchat to the Classroom,” at the 2023 Future of Education Technology® Conference in New Orleans in January. “In today’s world of distractions, with most of them being related to social media platforms, instead of fighting that distraction we can take the opportunity to help students learn how Snapchat was built and how it can be used in different careers.”

More from DA: Coding can be pretty personal. You should teach it like an art form 

Students can use Snapchat’s Lens Studio to create new augmented reality experiences (also known as filters) for the social network. These filters can change a user’s appearance and background or play music, all of which can be applied to digital marketing. And as students dig into digital marketing, they can develop a diverse set of skills in SEO, website development, research, data analysis, copywriting, social media management, graphic design, multimedia content creation, automation and programming, Penwell says.

Once the student publishes an augmented reality filter, Snapchat provides data on how many times it has been viewed, shared and favorited. “To receive feedback such as this can enhance and continue to encourage the learning and exploration of this field and take those skills into their career paths,” she adds.

Sticking with social media in school

There are several more presentations on the FETC agenda that will guide educators in using social media in school to engage students:

• Creating Your EDU Social Media Brand from Scratch: Learn to share your education story through your EDU Social Media Brand. Participants will learn how to create an online presence that amplifies their voice and mission as an educator, administrator or school. Multiple presenters. 
• Digital Citizenship & Social Emotional Learning: An Imperative Integration: The public exposure experienced by students was previously known only to celebrities. The integration of social-emotional learning skills helps students navigate online connections and develop healthy relationships, protect their digital identity through self-awareness, and safely express their values and identity through digital platforms. Presenters and attendees will discuss the research around social media, the practical application of social-emotional learning, and practical examples of guiding students to develop agency in their community. Presenters: Claire Handville, director of school counseling, and Billy Watts, instructional technology coach, at Charles J. Colgan Sr. High School in Prince William County, Virginia.
• Cyber-Challenges—Protecting Today’s Youth: So many students face a variety of cyber-challenges, and many teachers do not know what to do when faced with the challenges shared by students. Students who have grown up “online” do not necessarily know where to draw the boundary between public and private, which has opened up opportunities for others to cyberbully, cyberstalk and commit other cyber-crimes. Social media sites also make it difficult to track who the bully is—and whether it really is that person behind the picture in the profile. Attendees will learn tips for speaking with students of all ages, tools to implement safe social media practices and educate parents about cyberbullying. Presenter: Michelle Cheasty-Christ, instructor, Liberty High School (West Virginia).
• Social Media 101: Plan, Create, and Schedule Content: This workshop is a social media crash course designed to help educators understand how each Twitter, Instagram and TikTok work and how the networks can benefit the library and media center programs. Presenter: Lauren Mobley, library media specialist, North Clayton Middle School (Georgia).
• Social-Media-Inspired Project Ideas For Any Subject: Can our favorite social media platforms act as inspiration for student creations? The popular ways creators share content on social media can inspire student projects. Students can create graphics, write captions, and record videos in all subject areas. Presenter: Monica Burns, edtech consultant, Class Tech Tips, LLC.

The post Social media in school: Why it doesn’t have to be a nuisance appeared first on District Administration.

@schoolhousetok

Trash your insecurities! You are amazing in every way! #tiktokteachers #schoolhousetok #teachersoftiktok #teacherlife #support #selflove

♬ original sound – Neudini

First of all, if you don’t what TikTok is, think YouTube at warp speed and with a lot of dancing—or just ask the nearest student to show it to you on their phone (that is, if they are allowed to have their phone). Secondly, the video above, from the @schoolhousetok collaborative, exemplifies how many teachers are using TikTok: They’re having some serious fun (and showing off their video production skills) as they connect with students (meeting students where they are) and exchange ideas with colleagues. Of course, some TikTok teachers are just downright silly and are using the platform to commiserate with each other while riffing on public education.

TikTok teachers’ tips

The simple literacy lessons created by @iamthatenglishteacher have amassed 4.5 million followers—not bad for an educator, considering the actor Will Smith, who owns one of the world’s most popular TikTok accounts, has 72.2 million followers (despite the Oscars controversy). The teacher, also known as MsJames, films and posts the lessons she gives her class on spelling, word usage and writing, among other ELA topics.

Are you fully confident you know how to use commas properly in all situations? Well, here’s MsJames’ wildly popular video on commas:

@iamthatenglishteacher

#commause #writingtips #commapunctuationuseinasentence #socialmediagrammarmistakes #grammareducator #grammarteacher #sentencestructuring #ELAteacher

♬ original sound – MsJames

Shane Saeed, who produces @thefantasticallyfourth, is trying to reach her fellow teachers with tips on a range of topics, such as what tone of voices teachers can use to prompt students, the effectiveness of the rock, paper, scissors game in the classroom, and how she keeps away the “Sunday Scaries.”

TikTok climate control

Not all TikTok teachers are strictly academic or focused on professional development. Educators, like Mr. Rodney of @teachertoteacher, have culture and climate in mind. Here, he shares a message of tolerance and inclusion, with tips for how classes can recognize the LGBTQ+ community on National Coming Out Day:

@teachertoteacher

Things to think about when days like National Coming Out Day come around. Reflecting on your inclusivity practices throughout the year is always a good idea. Shoutout to the teachers that are doing the work to making students of all identities feel seen! . . . . . #teachersof2022 #teachersontiktokfyp #teachersoftiktok2022 #middleschoolteachersoftiktok #inclusiveclassroom #teachersoftiktok #gayteachers????‍???? #gayteachersoftiktok #comingoutday2022 #comingoutday

♬ original sound – Mr. Rodney – ELA Teacher

Of course, no discussion of classroom climate would be complete without a dose of social-emotional learning. Here, @elementarywithemma, explains a “bug and a wish”—a game-changing conflict resolution trick for the early grades:

@elementarywithemma

Teacher tip try “a bug and a wish” for your littles that need help solving problems with others. I got this from a teammate and it has worked so well for me the last few years! #teacher #teachertip

♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim

Laughing is learning

A lot of teachers are simply showing the world all the funny things that happen during the school day—and how some classroom management ideas (i.e., phone jails) can backfire.

@teachingandtacoz

???? #teachersoftiktok #middleschool #latinxteacher

♬ sonido original –

Finally, some dancing. And If you’re still not convinced your TikTok teachers are having fun with their students, Miss Doyle is definitely having a ball. She posts hidden video clues so her kids can guess the classroom’s daily theme:

@missdoyle1

Replying to @nellabella11222 What will tomorrow’s outfit theme be!????? #fyp #fypシ #foryoupage #foryou #tiktokteacher #secondgradeteacher #teachersoftiktok #teachertok #school #adhdteacher #elementaryschool #studentengagement #outfitoftheday #ootd #teacheroutfit #teacheroutfitcheck #teacheroutfits #teacheroutfitoftheday #halloween #spiderweb #bat #spooky #halloween2022 #dress #StemDrop001 #FomotionalFinds

♬ Cum on Feel the Noize – Quiet Riot

The post Here are 1 million ways teachers are having serious fun on TikTok appeared first on District Administration.