Safe Use of Social Media

Some suggestions of where to start can be found here.

Social Media covers a number of different platforms. Some ideas for how to investigate what is best for you can be found  in this document  (you may need to create an account to view the pdf). 

Some specific strategies for how to use different platforms are available in this page: developing-a-social-media-strategy-for-your-classroom .

This training is just going to focus on some fundamental steps that will help keep you safe, particularly when using Twitter and Facebook.

1. Separate Home & Work

2. Set 'Home' privacy as high as possible (this is possible in Twitter and Facebook)

3. Be aware of hidden connections (Friends of Friends etc)

4. Avoid 'closed' networks. 

5. Create Pages and Groups rather than 'Friending'.

6. Do not 'Follow Back'.

7. Use hashtags to create soft, open,  networks and collections. Although be careful with composite hashtags (See: #Susanalbumparty: Top five Twitter hashtag PR disasters )

8. Do not use private messaging - this includes personal emails, messaging services.

Updated Calendar

Based on the feedback that we were given here is the updated training calendar. Although some sessions are 'repeats', there is flexibility in their content if those attending wish to explore other aspects of the software being discussed.

Tuesday	01/04/2014	Office (Excel)	Filters, Sorts etc
Thursday	03/04/2014	Office (Excel)	Basic Formulae
Tuesday	08/04/2014	Office (Ppt)	Timings and Animations
Thursday	10/04/2014	Office (Ppt)	Embedding Media
Tuesday	15/04/2014	Office (Word)	Formatting and Layouts
Thursday	17/04/2014	Office (Word)	Review (Tracking Changes)
Tuesday	06/05/2014	Office (Outlook)	Using the Calendar
Thursday	08/05/2014	Visualisers	Using the Aver software
Tuesday	13/05/2014	Google	Getting Started
Thursday	15/05/2014	Prezi	Getting Started
Tuesday	20/05/2014	Lino	Getting Started
Thursday	22/05/2014	Blogs	Getting Started
Tuesday	27/05/2014	Youtube	Effective (and safe) Use
Thursday	29/05/2014	Social Media	Effective (and safe) Use

Tweet, T'who?

An earlier post outlined how to use Twitter hashtags to collect work together. But why follow others, and who?

I use a separate Twitter account for work purposes to create as much of a professional barrier as possible within the social platform. A few students follow this account, but I have consistently refused to follow students accounts. This is mainly due to the students' inability to separate private and public forums - which would end up filling my (your) timelines with who's fallen out with who, or what sauce they had on their burgers that evening.

I use my account to follow people of interest within the field and also those within the wider spectrum that may have benefit when looking for inspiration outside my subject.

Some good examples of maths specific people to follow...

Mark McCourt ‏ @EmathsUK

Chairman, Teacher Development Trust; CEO, Beluga Learning; Former Senior Director, Tribal; Director, NCETM; School Leader; Inspector; AST

Marcus du Sautoy ‏ @MarcusduSautoy

Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics

Algebra Fact ‏ @AlgebraFact

One fact per day M-F from algebra and number theory by @JohnDCook. Other daily math tweets: @TopologyFact, @ProbFact and @AnalysisFact.

There are plenty more like this last one.

As I've already said it is easy to find people around the subject area that may also be of interest...

CERN ‏ Verified account @CERN

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the biggest particle physics laboratory in the world.

Royal Institution ‏ @ri_science

The Ri connects people with the world of science through events, education, and the world-famous Christmas Lectures. Watch Ri videos here: http://www.richannel.org 

Using Twitter Hashtags

Twitter can be used as an easy way to collect images of students' work by using hashtags. For example #mrhoadmaths will collect together any students' posts containing the hashtag.

This can be used for peer assessment purposes or could be a 140 character limited self assessment statement.