This blog post was guest-authored by Kyle Hoopes, principal at Grovecrest Elementary in Utah. Kyle is passionate about helping kids to make a difference in their world, and he’s got a special invitation for your students!
Our Grovecrest Student Council got involved in the #Stuconnect Twitter chat for the first time last year. #StuConnect is a connected learning project that started several years ago as a cross-state collaborative podcast series, but has since evolved into an interactive Twitter chat that amplifies students’ voices all over the world.
I’m trying to help my students establish a positive social media presence by providing them safe and guided access to our school’s social media tools. In addition to teaching students what a positive digital footprint can look like, we’re also trying to share information about our school. This is a purposeful process; my hope is that when our students move on to junior high, high school, and beyond they will have established an effective digital presence and learned the importance of digital citizenship.
The #GCGrizzlies would like to invite elementary student councils and classrooms from around the world to participate in a #Stuconnect chat on Monday, May 15th. The topic is “Bullying” and we believe students should have a voice in possible solutions.
During the #StuConnect chat we will focus on how student leaders can proactively prevent bullying. The Twitter chat will start promptly at 8:30am Mountain Standard Time, and it will last approximately 30 minutes. Our students will post a new question every 10 minutes so there should be plenty of time for dialogue between schools.
We’ve found from past experience that posting the questions ahead of time provides teachers the opportunity to process and plan ahead with their classes. Our questions include:
1. Why do you think bullying happens?
2. How can we help those who are being targeted?
3. How can we help the person doing the bullying?
Quick Recap
Who: Student Councils and Classrooms Everywhere
What: #StuConnect chat for Students
Where: Twitter
When: Monday, May 15th at 8:30am MST (9:30am CST)
Why: Let’s empower kids to collaborate and solution-seek together!
Please join us for a great chat by posting to the #StuConnect on Twitter. Feel free to share this with other schools and be sure to invite your school’s student council to join us. If you’d like to reach out via Twitter you can contact us at @grovecgrizzlies or via our school’s hashtag (#GCGrizzlies).
