With the summer break approaching rapidly, let's take a look at a few tips from My Big Campus staff, as well as trainers, teachers and administrators at schools all over My Big Campus.
Take advantage of free training resources
Create your own adventure with self-guided training modules that help you find and share resources with ease, ditch the thumb drive, spend less time at the copier, and more.
Find inspiration, lesson plans, professional development in the Bundle Exchange
As a staff user, when you click on Bundles you see the Bundle Exchange where you can search for inspiration, lesson plans, PD, and more by keyword, rating, popularity, state or common core standard, and more. Brooke Wheeler from Benjamin Bosse High School came up with a great idea for a Bundle: My teacher is absent! What should I do?. It's a fun and engaging lesson for her art classes that she can share with a substitute teacher for days when she can't be in class. And it's an easy idea to adapt for your own subject areas -- create your own, or find and adapt bundles by state standard, type (lesson plan / unit / project-based learning, etc.), or keyword.
Check out our Professional Learning Communities
The educator-only newsfeed EduTalk has come into its own as a source of ideas, questions and answers, and shoutouts from users in every corner of the US and abroad. Many teachers have already linked My Big Campus with their Twitter accounts, and tweets propagate automatically to EduTalk. You'll see "hoots" from experts like MBC Senior Coach Matt Kitchens, PBL practicioner Jason Seaver, and virtual education specialist Michele Eaton, among many others.
For PD resources, discussions, and subject-area collaboration, visit our Topics -- they work like Groups, but they're open to educators anywhere in My Big Campus. If you're new to MBC, join the MBC Orientation Center. You'll also find special interest areas for Flipped Classroom, iPad/iPod, and Project Based Learning.
Finally, there's the MBC Trainers group. We created this group originally to host the first MBC Summer Academy, back in 2011, and it's become the go-to place for best practices, collaboration, technical discussions and expert help from certified MBC Coaches, MBC staff, and other MBC power users. You don't need to be an MBC expert to participate -- request to join, and group owner Merleen Johnson will even send you some goodies!
Got tips or feedback of your own?
Let me know in the Comments if you have a question, or would like to share a tip of your own. I always welcome your feedback related to the subject of this blog post.
If you've been on My Big Campus for awhile, you've probably noticed me talking to students about "Spam." Today, I'm going to show you what that means, give you a few examples, and explain why it's not allowed on MBC and most other websites.
What is Spam?
Well, there's SPAM®, and then there's "spam."
SPAM® is a canned luncheon meat from Hormel Foods. While not everyone cares for the taste, SPAM has been a staple of army chow and camping cuisine for decades. It's a favorite dish in Hawaii, where it's served at McDonalds and many other restaurants.
Spam is also the title of a famous skit by the British comedy group Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which a couple tries to order breakfast in a cafe, only to find that Spam, Spam, Spam, and Spam are their only choices.
Finally, electronic Spam is anything in email, chat, or discussions, that interrupts and has nothing to do with a conversation. Electronic Spam got its name from the Monty Python "Spam" skit.
Examples of spam
Electronic Spam takes many forms. The one thing all these types of Spam have in common is that it's annoying, distracting, and unwanted. It's like shouting at the top of your lungs when someone else is trying to talk.
Email spam: "Junk mail" sent to millions of people at a time to sell some kind of product that is often fake, illegal, or dangerous.
Text spam: SMS or TXT messages sent to your mobile phone from someone you don't know, trying to sell you something.
Discussion and Comment Spam: Typing the same message over and over, or pasting large amounts of text in a message, or posting off topic messages to disrupt a conversation.
Spam on My Big Campus
One of the reasons your school uses My Big Campus is to give students a safe, supervised place to learn how to use social media appropriately. In other words, My Big Campus is here to help teach students how to be good digital citizens. You can read about My Big Campus rules in the Student Pledge.
We don't allow spam on My Big Campus because, just as in real life, it's rude to interrupt a conversation just to annoy people. Digital citizenship is all about learning to work together with people close to you and from many different places and cultures. Working together like this creates ideas and knowledge that make peoples' lives better.
Spamming on My Big Campus is a serious matter. It's not only rude and disrespectful, in some cases it can make people feel bullied because they don't get a fair chance to take part in online social activities.
I want you all to enjoy using My Big Campus to learn and interact with your friends. Let's all work together to make this a friendly, helpful place for everyone.
Got questions or comments related to the subject of this blog? Please let me know in the comments.
Now that the fall term is underway for just about everyone, let's take a look at a few "back to school" tips from My Big Campus staff, as well as trainers, teachers and administrators at schools all over My Big Campus.
Take advantage of free training resources
Create your own adventure with self-guided training modules that help you find and share resources with ease, ditch the thumb drive, spend less time at the copier, and more.
While parents usually want their students to take advantage of the school's technology instruction and resources, they may have some concerns about the social aspects of My Big Campus. You can use this sample letter and sample flyer to address those concerns and explain the benefits of safe, monitored social learning.
Parents also like to stay up to date on student activities in My Big Campus. We're working on a Parent Portal, which is scheduled for release later this fall, but in the meantime, check out the tips from teacher Ashleigh Sandifer and others in this MBC Trainers discussion.
Find inspiration, lesson plans, professional development in the Bundle Exchange
As a staff user, when you click on Bundles you see the Bundle Exchange where you can search for inspiration, lesson plans, PD, and more by keyword, rating, popularity, state or common core standard, and more. Brooke Wheeler from Benjamin Bosse High School came up with a great idea for a Bundle: My teacher is absent! What should I do?. It's a fun and engaging lesson for her art classes that she can share with a substitute teacher for days when she can't be in class. And it's an easy idea to adapt for your own subject areas -- create your own, or find and adapt bundles by state standard, type (lesson plan / unit / project-based learning, etc.), or keyword.
Check out our Professional Learning Communities
First introduced last year, the educator-only newsfeed EduTalk is coming into its own as a source of ideas, questions and answers, and shoutouts from users in every corner of the US and abroad. Many teachers have already linked My Big Campus with their Twitter accounts, and tweets propagate automatically to EduTalk. You'll see "hoots" from experts like MBC Senior Coach Matt Kitchens, PBL practicioner Jason Seaver, and virtual education specialist Michele Eaton, among many others.
Finally, there's the MBC Trainers group. We created this group originally to host the first MBC Summer Academy, back in 2011, and it's become the go-to place for best practices, collaboration, technical discussions and expert help from certified MBC Coaches, MBC staff, and other MBC power users. You don't need to be an MBC expert to participate -- request to join, and group owner Merleen Johnson will even send you some goodies!
Got tips or feedback of your own?
Let me know in the Comments if you have a question, or would like to share a tip of your own. I always welcome your feedback related to the subject of this blog post.
The My Big Campus team regularly hosts training events for educators. The training is designed to give people the skills and knowledge they need to go back and train fellow teachers and students on how to use My Big Campus in the classroom.
Teachers want to be sure that My Big Campus is safe for them and their students to use. At the end of a recent training session in Indianapolis, Indiana, teachers discussed the safety features of My Big Campus. Here are a few of the highlights of that discussion:
MBC provides us with a springboard to teach students about proper social networking so that when they are using their Facebook and other accounts, they have some sort of guidance! Unfortunately, many of my third grade students have FB accounts that are obviously not monitored closely by their parents. This just gives me a concrete way to show them that networking can be fun without all of the "junk" and drama!
Words of concern are screened, flagged and checked. Students who abuse this system can be restricted, and therefore, held accountable.
I love that I have a safe place to communicate with my students outside of the classroom.
When I train, I always reference an onion. Not the stinky part, I mean the layers. There is a building wall, a district wall, and the the super-duper Lightspeed wall.
We have a few people who are really advocating for us to open up everything to our students - Facebook, YouTube, etc. I think this would be a huge mistake and doesn't consider the best interests of our students. MBC allows them to receive the educational benefit of those tools without exposure to the bad. How can you argue against that?!
Mistakes can turn into lessons learned...
What we like about MBC is the safe YouTube access. We love how MBC strips away all the superfluous content and inappropriate comments.
I like the fact that MBC seems to be very proactive in making sure that this is a safe environment for our students. With so many worries about not only inappropriate web content, but cyber bullying as well, it's nice to know the protection is there.
I was thrilled to read their comments, because I knew these teachers truly understood why I created My Big Campus. Do you have a story about online safety to share? Let me know in the comments.
We want My Big Campus to be a safe place for students to socialize in an appropriately educational context. As such, we use various methods to intercept certain types of content that may be unsuitable for a K-12 environment.
Occasionally, however, inappropriate content can slip past our automatic and manual reviews. That's where our community can help.
If you see a wall post, comment, discussion or library item that you feel should be reported to your school administrators and My Big Campus staff, click the Report Abuse button.
Here are some of the things administrators and staff want to know about:
Harassment
Bullying
Profanity (swearing or cussing)
Threats
Drinking or drug abuse
Talk of suicide or self harm
Gang activity
Criminal behavior
Inappropriate socializing between adults and students, or between older students and younger students
Unsafe situations (abuse or neglect)
Broken links or missing videos in the Resource Library
Anything else you see that administrators and staff should know about
Using the Report Abuse button is not the same as tattling or snitching. When a person "acts out," it's often because they just need an adult to help them understand how to behave safely and appropriately on line. Other times, a person might appear to be in danger of being hurt, or hurting themselves, and needs someone to make sure unsafe situations are investigated and resolved. Finally, it can be a quick way to let MBC staff know there is a technical problem.
There are only a few cases where it is not appropriate to use the Report Abuse button:
As a prank or practical joke
When you are trying to reply to a post. Use the Comment button instead.
On My Big Campus, good citizenship means being accountable for your actions. Use the Report Abuse button responsibly: if something seems wrong, let us know.
