• Arrived in sunny Madrid and we are installed in our apartment complete with comedy bathroom. Looking forward to some great tapas later on. #

• Getting ready for tomorrow’s early start - off to Madrid for a long weekend with family. #

There is a community of educators finding themselves all a-twitter this week after a Scottish teacher is reported to be under investigation for sharing sensitive information on Twitter, and for using the social networking tool during working hours.

A reaction from the fast-growing community of educators is only natural. Many will carry on using Twitter as normal in good faith. Others will be nagged by neurotic uncertainty about the odd post sent at lunchtime or good-humoured rant. Some users will choose to protect their updates so that they do not appear publicly for fear of the crossfire following the Scottish case.

The overwhelming majority of twitter-using teachers are responsible ‘twitizens’ and would never dream of sharing inappropriate or sensitive material that would compromise their professionalism or their school community. Many educators use it to enormous benefit for colleagues and students. For schools or local authorities to impede the sharing of best practice and support that Twitter networks promote would be nothing short of criminal.

When backed into a corner, many school leaders would probably say “Just don’t use Facebook / Twitter / blogs / Flickr  [insert other web2.0 tools here] to staff who query what is ok and what isn’t. That isn’t realistic or acceptable. If schools and local authorities are concerned about teacher use of social media, then my suggestion would be to ask staff to put together their ideas for a guide on acceptable use.

Teachers are responsible people. We can be trusted.

________________________________________________________________

I would like to develop a crowd-sourced acceptable use guide that teachers could share. Add your constructive suggestions in the comments. Thank you to @andyfield, @ericcole, @seanhanson for their help so far. I have started with thinking about Twitter, but would like it to encompass social media more generally.

Draft Social Media Acceptable Use Guidance.

1. Respect the sensitivity of information about staff, students or parents.
2. Maintain professionalism in all public communications.
3. Use common sense when communicating with students online and maintain appropriate teacher-student boundaries.
4. Ensure that school resources are used appropriately.

What would you add?

• Regretted going to sleep with the window open. Weather evened the score last night with horizontal through-the-window-onto-me rain. #
• Slightly surprised that there is no free / nearly free converter to enable a Mac to open .xlr (MS Works) files. $79 for Dataviz MacLink #
• Have felt it prudent to protect updates temporarily, given current situation. #
• Out of interest: if you were writing acceptable use guidance for teachers in your school using social media, what would you include? #
• Interesting comments coming in about acceptable use guidance for teachers on social media: http://is.gd/FeAT #
• RT @nandikerri: will we still be calling them 21st century skills in 2020? how about 2071? #
• RT: @schoolbusiness: credit crunch ideas for school business managers http://bit.ly/14wA6O #
• RT: @Scienceteach: IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience http://tinyurl.com/aeu3h2 I enjoyed this! #

• RT @porchester: http://bit.ly/Bk7dV
  (via @alandavies1) hilarious incompetence by the BNP, who clearly need no help discrediting themselves! #
• RT @craigelder: David Cameron will be taking your Twitter questions from 11AM tomorrow. Use tag #askdc - more info at http://bit.ly/HRbdH #
• Walker household and BBQ 1, weather nil. #

• It’s a glorious day here. We’ve been on a lovely canalside walk. Now off to outdoor jacuzzi at health club. I take relaxing v seriously! #

• RT@ackygirl: Dear PLN, pls answer this survey on connected learning http://tinyurl.com/oxvd6e & pass it on to other teachers in your network #

• RT @jpallis001: anyone able to help me find ‘the’ definition of personalised learning? http://tinyurl.com/qjl6a6 #
• RT @mashable: It’s #followfriday on Twitter! Here’s how Follow Friday works: http://bit.ly/2S29Fq #
• RT @MrTweet: Productwivity: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Twitterers: @WayneSutton - http://bit.ly/90kia #
• Just booked my place on the Open Source Schools UK Unconference on 20th July. http://is.gd/tGRj #
• Head of Science at my school just sent me this link, fun & foolproof science demonstrations in five different languages: http://is.gd/CiGp #
• Question: what does your high school provide for new students who arrive unable to read or write well enough to access the curriculum? #

• Ooooooh! Want! RT @ncsl: Welcome to a new world of learning: apply for the International Leadership Learning Programme - http://is.gd/C3qn #
• Just booked a week in a very cute cottage in Wales for this summer. Anticipate gorgeous mountain walks, pub lunches & superb views. Pleased! #
• RT @mayafrost: Study confirms those who know two languages learn additional ones more easily. http://tinyurl.com/qmxa4q #

• Last lesson with year 11 today. I was hoping they’d want to finish on a positive note with some good work. I was wrong! #
• This made me smile this evening. http://twitpic.com/5i024 #
• RT @bbctech: In this digital age, who still doesn’t have the internet? http://tinyurl.com/r8yc3l #