SMILE - a digital handbook

Last year I took part in SMILE (Social Media in Education and Learning), a project that I wrote about here. The project was launched by the European Schoolnet (EUN) and funded by a Digital Citizenship Research Grant from Facebook.  About 100 teachers took part in the first part of the project led by Ollie Bray, an outstanding educator and teacher trainer from Scotland and one of the best speakers I've ever heard - and I have heard many! (I've been lucky to have had the opportunity (actually, more than one) to have Ollie as the leader of the PD workshops here and here - he's simply the best!). 

In the second part we formed 6 Communities of Practice in order to highlight trends and best practices of how social media can be used in education. I was the deputy leader of CoP 4 - Social Media for Professional Development and I'm really grateful to all of you who responded to our Facebook survey that we used to measure and improve the use of social media for PD.

And now, a year later, I'm pleased to announce that the results of this praiseworthy project have been published in the form of a digital handbook. You can download this booklet and use its materials, resources, suggestions and recommendations to tackle the following aspects of the use of social media in learning and teaching:

• Social media - what is it?
• Social media - school policies
• Social media - pedagogical principles
• Social media - professional development (CPD)
• Social media - internet safety and responsible use
• Social media - challenges to adoption

And finally, I can't help but copy/paste this practice example from the handbook that shows how to explore digital footprints in a classroom context:

 ‘Last year, we* asked our students to create a digital identity. First we showed them the Lorenzo von Matterhorn video (taken from the How I Met Your Mother television series). Afterwards, we asked our pupils to design a poster which captures their own digital identity. Their response was amazing! Their created over 50 wonderful posters, which we brought together in one photo story slide show.’ 

* Bart and myself in our eTwinning project "Embedded in EU"