The education nonprofit worked with Instagram to launch the School Partnership Program last month. It provides school staff a direct line to Instagram for faster reporting and removal of content that could hurt students, according to a news release.
Along similar lines, ISTE+ASCD announced a $1 million grant from Pinterest this week to help educators understand how to teach healthy tech use in schools, with assistance from in-person, expert-led task forces as well as free online training.
ISTE+ASCD CEO Richard Culatta said the two programs combined offer a more complete and effective approach to improving student experiences with technology.
“It’s got to be both — schools have to have control and power to remove distracting and inappropriate content, and they have to be creating a healthy culture, so that it’s not just popping up again,” he said.
A DIRECT LINE TO INSTAGRAM
Reports from Instagram school partners are expedited and will be reviewed within 48 hours, per the website. The news release adds that partner schools also receive updates on the status of each report and any related actions by Instagram.
Culatta said he hopes other social media platforms will follow suit and develop similar tools for schools, and that the success of the Instagram program will embolden school leaders to push even harder for these much-needed reforms.
“There are other platforms that are in that social space that have not stepped up yet in the way Instagram has. Snapchat is one of them. TikTok is another,” he said. “Those are two that really, really need to come to the table and understand that they have to start putting in some tools and protections to help schools in ways that haven’t happened yet.”
DEEP-DIVE EXPERIENCE
With the $1 million Pinterest grant, ISTE+ASCD will help form and support task forces made up of teachers, school leaders and experts on youth mental health and digital citizenship in 12 U.S. school districts, according to yesterday’s announcement.
Culatta said each district task force will focus on how to promote a healthy digital culture in their particular schools. The nonprofit will then share what worked in a free online course and video series for educators nationwide, he said, expected to be released this fall.
“These 12 districts are sort of like our lab sites, where we know the elements that work, but we’re going to put them all together for the first time and really model how it works,” Culatta said. “And then, as we refine that, we will take that approach and that will be our online course that any district leader can take.”
Six school districts have already been chosen to participate in the program, including the nation's largest — New York City Public Schools. But Culatta said the nonprofit is looking for six more to round out the cohort.
“We’re looking for early leaders that are going to raise their hand and say, ‘We want to be a model for what this looks like.’ And if we don’t have any more room for people to participate in this deep-dive experience, we’ll make sure that they’re alerted when the online course becomes available,” he said.
HEALTHY DIGITAL CULTURE
As far as what it means for a school to have a healthy digital culture, Culatta said it’s a concept that goes beyond teaching students digital citizenship skills to creating an environment where there’s safe, open and consistent communication about the pros and cons of tech use.
Such a culture requires schools to establish clear norms for healthy digital behaviors, he said, which are then talked about and modeled by educators for students to practice on a regular basis.
“It is physically impossible to practice not doing something. You can only practice doing something,” Culatta said. “And so we have to say, ‘Here are the things we want you to do,’ so they can practice doing the right things.”
For example, instead of telling students not to use their smartphones in school, Culatta said a healthy digital culture would focus instead on showing them how to use their phones in helpful ways, such as for fact-checking and showing support for friends, to better prepare them for the future.
“You can’t keep [smartphones] in a pouch for the rest of your life,” he said. “At some point, you have to practice using them in the right ways, and that’s a big challenge.”
