To FaceBook or not to FaceBook?
As I promised yesterday when I asked whether teachers should have a FaceBook page, I have begun a little research into how educators are using FaceBook.
Some of the issues I am seeing emerge:
Students may have a problem with sensing what is appropriate netiquette
Teachers may need to think about separating their professional and personal lives
elements of naivety on both sides
some educators are saying they have avoided FaceBook and similar applications because people, students in particular, simply don’t understand the issues surrounding levels of privacy or invasion of privacy
many educational institutions have blocked access to FaceBook because of what they see as the potential for bullying, distractions, time usage, and the blowout of the school’s download budget.
I am really interested in your experiences and thoughts. Please leave a comment.
Links to check:
Gen F’s workplace
Comment on a new term for Gen Y
The Facebook Generation: At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy. What does this say about where and how they teach?
Elite school’s horrific cyber-bullying case
A local Australian case where students published material on the social networking website, My Space, containing personal and possibly defamatory information about their classmates.
Streaky Bay Area School on Facebook
Using Facebook to bring the school community together.
FaceBook warning for Teachers: BBC News
A podcast about the dangers for teachers, particularly of establishing online friendships with students. A new code of conduct for Scottish teachers.
Girls suspended for teacher jibes - UK report
This involved 29 pupils aged between 11 and 18 at a UK girls school who targeted a particular member of staff on a FaceBook they called The Hate Society.
Facebook + Education = ?
A nice setting out of the Pros and Cons, particularly some of the privacy issues.
4 Comments
I can see privacy as one of the main issues but maintaining both private and professional accounts may be the answer.
I think this probably works with something like Twitter Hosam, but you put a lot more time investment into Twitter, so many teachers would think twice, and it still comes down to whether people who find you on FaceBook would be able to tell the difference between the two.
Hi! ;) My name’s Jo Kay and I’m a Facebook addict! You can view my FB profile here. hehehe! (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=714934761&ref=profile)
http://jokay.com.au/2009/05/08/a-note-about-facebook-for-kerrie/
Joking aside, I use Facebook from both a personal and a professional perspective, and despite the random apps (quizzes, mafia wars, superpokes etc) I do find it a very useful tool.
From the professional perspective, I use Facebook as a communication channel for the community of practice I facilitate on the Islands of jokaydia in Second Life. We have created a Facebook Group for jokaydia and it has been very effective for promotion of events and activities, but also gives people a space to connect with us and find out more. This is particularly important for us, as it allows those who cant or arent in Second Life to connect with our activities via the 2D web. The jokaydia Facebook Group has about 300 members and growing - check it out here.
We also use Facebook to promote the jokaydia Blog via the Networked Blogs Facebook App and have an Islands of jokaydia Product Page which provides info and pathways to our various spaces/presence online.
For my own professional development:
* Via FB Status updates I engage in lots of incidental learning about various personal and professional areas of interest. My FB friends are a clever bunch and share all sorts of useful information via Status Updates on their Facebook pages.
* FB is a professional development calendar. Via the several hundred groups I have joined on Facebook I get daily updates on both online and f2f conferences, workshops, resources and events. These connections are an important part of ongoing professional development for me.
From a personal perspective:
* FB connects me with family and friends, and allows me to keep up with what everyone is doing quickly and easily - I certainly have much more dialogue with some of my aunts, cousins, old school friends because of FB.
* FB is a virtual watercooler and debriefing space - i think many freelance/home based workers use tools like FB and Twitter to gather and share with their peers informally about the days frustrations, successes and events.
Ultimately, Facebook has both good and bad qualities and its important to understand how to use it properly. For example some see it as spam city - but this can be mitigated by setting up your account alerts properly and blocking spammy apps.
A few other things to note:
* Be choosey about who you add as friends, as their contributions will appear in updates on your page!
* Be choosey about the applications you add to your profile - these can add content to your profile page, spam your friends or include your information on application pages.
* Remember that the Facebook Terms of Service suck and they have the right to use your the data. Be thoughtful about what you publish from a copyright and IP perspective.
* Facebook pages include advertising - this can sometimes be a problem if you are using the space to communicate with students.
* Think carefully about your privacy settings. Be open and share where appropriate, but protect your privacy using Facebook settings if you are concerned.
* Check out your workplace/employer’s policies on use of social media. What do you need to disclose? Is it ok to talk about work on Facebook?
* Dont publish stuff you wouldnt like your Nana to see - she probably knows how to use Google, and so does your future employer and their HR department!
But what about actually answering Kerrie’s Question - should teachers have a Facebook presence?
In my opinion, all teachers need to have an online presence and an understanding of how to manage their digital identity. They also need to develop a personal online learning network to access fantastic professional development opportunities.
Facebook is one of a huge list of useful tools that can help teachers and students to do this and is a good option for some users, BUT there are many other tools too, and its important to choose something which suits you!
Anyway, I will be very interested to hear what others share about their own Facebook experiences. Thanks Kerrie!
I believe that everybody has the right to participate in such online communcations such as facebook. Relationships built on a personal level ouside of the school enviorment should not be influenced through technolgy online communiaction. This tool of communication can be used to tap into, the personal lifes of teachers creating no boundries for a teacher, student and parent relationships. Laws or school policies should be implaced as in this ever changing technoglical world, this resource should be personal and not used as a communcation tool between teachers, students and parents. Creating this barrier between the professional and personal relationships is critical in society of toady and the future, we are forever seeing technology used in appropriate and inappropirate ways. Reducing the oppurtunity for inappropraite boundries between the classroom and community starts with professionalism through personal and professional uses of communication with technology.
One Trackback/Pingback
[…] Note: Kerrie Smith asked me to share some info about how use Facebook via a Tweet, and adding a comment with URLs on her blog got all too hard, so im posting it here! You can view the posts it relates to on Kerrie’s Blog here and here. […]
Post a Comment