Jason Culp, Head of Upper Schooljculp@lawrenceschool.org

Sally Garza, Director of Technologysgarza@lawrenceschool.org

Lou Salza, Head of Schoollsalza@lawrenceschool.org

To create a larger community of our students to share thoughts, perspectives, projects, videos, literary magazines, dramatic performances—anything they would like other kids in other schools to see.

Most of our students describe a sensation of “normalization” shortly after they arrive at our

schools. For perhaps the first time, they experience what it is like for a normal kids to go

to school. Perform, learn, and achieve –well—normally. Our students identify this feeling of

being normal with being in school. Perhaps we could expand that feeling by demonstrating

that our students are part of a larger community of students and adults who learn

differently—through opportunities to share their work and their thinking with a broader audience through the use of a social networking platform.

Meets requirements for 21st century skills required now by most states A study by the Washington-based Pew

Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released early this year found that 73 percent of Americans ages 12 to 17 now use social-networking websites, up from 55 percent in 2006.

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2010/06/16/03networking.h03.htmlhttp://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-

Adults.aspx

Best to teach students good social networking skills in a safe environment that translate into good non-school social networking behavior

Parental and school concern over students using traditional social networks

Social networking in itself not innovative

But the idea of harnessing social networking to empower students is

Although many schools are using blogs and wikis in the classroom, many are not using them to purposely connect with other students in their community both in and out of their school building

Willingness to devote professional development hours to learning how to use the social networking platform Would need time and resources for

“expert user(s)” to get trained or to learn the platform

Would need expert user(s) at each school to devote time and training expertise to training staff and students

Small investment in annual social network costs Ning & Saywire are both pay social

networks that provide a level of control and security and safety for organization and users

Willingness to devote time to getting the social network going Most organizational social networks on

Ning, LinkdIn or similar take at least 3 years before users use it regularly

As participants in the group we need to give the platform a chance to grow as users become more adept at using its features and how to integrate into classroom and outside of classroom opportunities

the project would tap into a pre-existing set of skills possessed by most of our kids—the faculty might have a bit of a learning curve.

This notion of harnessing technology was floated at the end of the last summit. So this is an idea which grew out of Ryan’s sub group at the 2008 summit.

Yes we are!We have devoted over a year of staff

and student training to learning Saywire in the last year

We have also talked to both Saywire and Ning to make sure that both of these social networks can handle the type of network we would want

Expectations: This is a partnerships amongst the

Leadership Schools Leadership schools would need to be

willing to have their teachers and students collaborate and post material to share between the schools

Benefits: Professional Development collaboration Using skills students already know in an

Educational vs. Recreational tool Stronger sense of trust by parents and

teachers because we know who the other students our students are communicating with vs on Facebook or MySpace where we don’t necessarily know who students are communicating with

Less in some schools than others depending on tech savviness

Cost Time School belief about role of social

networking in school = higher risk for cyberbullying = teachers not being allowed to

communicate with students outside of class

Recommend 3 year commitment to the social network evolution

Start by getting schools signed up to social network selected