Teachers are becoming open to the possibilities for social media tools in the classroom. In the hands of the right educators, they can be used to engage in creative ways and inspire discussion among even the softest-spoken students. However popular social networking and content sharing sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are often blocked by schools because its content can’t be moderated – even though they can be a good source of high-quality teaching resources.
Student Jotter is a system for e-portfolios and secure social networking that enables teachers to incorporate safe, secure social media into their lesson plans. Teachers can share their lesson plans, quizzes, videos, podcasts and other resources in a shared library. A community section allows teachers and students to network and collaborate with other members who share the same educational interests.  Class discussions are no longer intimidating for some students to participate in.
Everything is hosted in the cloud for free. Some great tools are included:  An online gradebook, customised quizzes, secure messaging, classroom blogs, the ability to track assessment and a customised profile page.  Student Jotter also enables students to easily share their work projects with classmates.
The interface is easy to navigate and teachers can monitor and edit any of their students’ messages and blogs posts. They can also control how private they want the e-portfolio to be; student-and-teacher only,  allow parents to log in with a password, or make them publically available.
In summary, School Jotter is a better way for teachers and students to organise themselves, and a place to put their work.
Is your school using social media for teaching and learning? What resources do you use? Let us know by leaving a comment below!

A number of schools in the UK are warning parents to be on their guard against cyber-bullying and even gang violence as a result of their childrens’ use of popular social networking sites such as Facebook.  Gatherings of large numbers of young people are often organised using these websites, without the knowledge of their parents or carers.  This, say the schools, is putting pupils at risk of serious crime including muggings, thefts and even physical injury.
One possible solution is to provide students with internally administered and monitored social networks, such as our solution for e-Portfolios and Secure Social Networking in schools.

Cyberbulling via Facebook leads to teachers’ call for legal clampdown on uncontrolled social networks.
Scottish teachers have requested that the law be changed to make mainstream social networking sites more accountable for abusive and intimidating comments posted online by school children.
Scotland’s biggest teaching union claims it receives between 50 and 60 complaints a year from teachers who have been cyberbullied, harassed and threatened online by their students. It argues that new laws are needed to bring websites more into line with newspapers and broadcasters which are subject to defamation and libel legislation.
The union claims that social networking sites such as Facebook “have published derogatory material and in some cases it does a lot of emotional damage”.
“We need a change in the law to make liability rest with the site holders,” he said.
Schoolteachers have discovered abusive comments from their pupils on the web, often threatening physical violence. Some of the perpetrators have been charged with offences of breach of the peace and teachers have been left with anxiety attacks.
What do you think? Is it time for schools to re-educate social media users with alternative, controlled social networks for schools that redefine and reinforce the boundaries of acceptable and safe internet usage?

The press is increasingly featuring stories that warn of the negative impacts of social media on school age children. Popular public social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are regularly blamed for sinister activities including cyber bullying, stalking and even gang violence.
Many believe, however, that the long-term educational benefits of social media far outweigh the risks. Most schools already use the Internet for teaching, and social media concepts are already essential elements in the lives of most students of Key Stage 2 and above.
Schools are already beginning to incorporate ways of using Facebook-like tools such as discussion forums, photo albums, blogs and secure messaging to develop subject learning through closer collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Safe Social Networking Tools are Available!
What’s required by schools is a means of controlling the perceived risks associated with social media. Banning is one solution. The other – dare we say more productive! – option is for schools to incorporate purpose-built internal social networking software as part of their ICT portfolio.
Webanywhere has developed Student Jotter as a way for students to share their work with peers within their social network, turning academic work into fun. Student Jotter avoids the dangers associated with social media use at school. Teachers can monitor and moderate everything that students post online, and third party influences by advertisers or other sources of inappropriate content are completely eliminated.
Social media used for teaching enables students to comment and critique each other’s work, collaborate in teams, and to securely send messages to each other and their teacher with queries or to start a discussion.
There are undoubted dangers in children using public social networks and schools cannot afford to take these risks lightly. However safe internal solutions are now available that schools can entrust to their students, providing them with familiar cutting edge technology and creating controlled social learning networks within the classroom and at home.
Visit the website of Student Jotter, our innovative system
for e-Portfolios and Secure Social Networking to see how it can benefit schools.