Digital Technologies – Responsible Use

Social media use for student learning

Establishing protocols for social media use

Template protocols for appropriate social media use for students, staff and parents are provided in the Resources tab. Schools are encouraged to adapt these templates with student and parent input, ensuring they outline acceptable behaviour and consequences for rule violations, and that they are regularly reviewed.

Interactions between students on social media platforms should be monitored regularly, with platforms closed if not in use.

Careful consideration should be given to posting photographs of students online, ensuring that a risk assessment is conducted, and appropriate consent is obtained. For further guidance, refer to Photographing, Filming and Recording Students.

Appropriate uses for social media to support student learning

The following examples demonstrate social media platforms and applications being used appropriately, with a clear educational context, in ways that limit or avoid student activities from being visible to the public online:

• use of a private classroom online forum or social networking group for students to post curriculum-related questions, which the teacher and/or other students answer (for example, curriculum support for students studying a VCE subject)
• use of a private classroom online blog by a student to describe/showcase classwork as it develops, which the teacher, peers or the student’s parents/carers can make appropriate comments on (for example, portfolio of a design process)
• use of an online wiki by a teacher as a content repository (for example, a collection of primary source material)
• use of an online photo sharing site to curate and annotate image collections to support understanding of curriculum content (for example, photographs of landforms or other geographical features)
• use of a private classroom discussion board or chat forum to hold a slow chat, where questions posed/answers posted can be offered at different times (for example, questions prompting students to share effective self-regulation strategies)
• use of online collaborative mapping tools to record/annotate local or global events, phenomena and places (for example, mapping/documenting global volcanic activity)
• use of an online instant messaging app to organise and run a class event (for example, an act for the annual school concert).