Title:	INSIDE THE DIGITAL WILD WEST: HOW SCHOOL LEADERS BOTH ACCESS AND AVOID SOCIAL MEDIA
Author(s):	Laurie Corrigan, Lorayne Robertson
ISBN:	978-989-8533-43-2
Editors:	Demetrios G. Sampson, J. Michael Spector, Dirk Ifenthaler and Pedro Isaías
Year:	2015
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Safe School policy, cyber behaviour, social media
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	117
Last Page:	124
Language:	English
Cover:
Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	This study examines the roles of Canadian school leaders in response to the rising phenomenon of student use of social media which impacts school climate and safety. The use of social media has resulted in more online text and image-based communication to multiple users and less face-to-face communication with single users. Adolescent communication, a previously invigilated phenomenon, has not yet been replaced by an online social presence with a social regulation. Secondly, there have been changes in national, provincial, and district Safe School policies in response to online misbehaviour that impacts student safety within the school environment. This small study considers the views of nine Canadian secondary school vice-principals about school policies and students’ cyber behaviours. Their responses were collected on a NING, a private cyber environment. Findings indicate that when cyber events come to the awareness of the school administration, the school becomes a nexus for investigation and resolution. The study also finds that when Canadian secondary school administrators are compelled to respond to the event, these school leaders can and do access social media, employ cyber skills to identify users, intervene in wrongdoing and, in the process, follow and enact Canadian Safe School legislation. However, these same school leaders express great reluctance to use social media for their personal or professional purposes. The authors hypothesize that this may be due to their exposure to negative experiences with social media in schools
	Go Back