November 27. Day 331. Dipping your toe in the water

Some parents are such pains in the arse. The teachers must see them coming and try to hide in the staff room or lock themselves in the toilet or something.
Um, sorry about that. I try to keep my mouth shut but sometimes I can't help myself.
So it was at a school meeting tonight to discuss the roll out of student laptops for Year 11 next year. The school was running through the terms of use which included no social media and a wireless network that would block all social media sites. Okay, plenty of workplaces have similar bans. Okay, I have spent too much time in front of tutorials where students devote much of the class to updating their Facebook statuses not to be aware how distracting social media can be in education.
But I also know that in a classroom setting, social media can be used for good as well as evil and banning it seems crazy. Embrace it, teach responsible use, engage with it. It will be part of their world so you really should be using it rather than pretending it doesn't exist ... So when the presentation was over and parents were invited to talk to the staff one-on-one about the new program, pain-in the-arse mother puts the case for using social media in the classroom.
If there was eye rolling they did their best to hide it. And, in fact, they agreed with me. But the program is new, protocols need to be put in place and not all teachers are sufficiently well versed in the use of social media to bring it into the classroom. It is coming and training will happen. At this stage they are just dipping their toes in the water, not yet ready to dive in. So, on reflection, perhaps this little black duck isn't so bad after all. Just causing the odd ripple like this ducky moorhen at South Bank this morning.