A couple of weeks ago, when I was investigating the use of Twitter and Facebook in educational settings, I set up a Google document to capture input on whether educators, and perhaps their students, should have access to Facebook or Twitter in working hours.
These are the questions I asked.
1. Where do you work?
2. Has the issue of accessing Twitter while at work ever been discussed?
3. Has the issue of accessing FaceBook while at work ever been discussed?
4. Can you get to twitter.com from a computer at work?
5. If you access Twitter at work do you use computer, mobile phone, iPod?
6. Can you get to facebook.com at work?
7. Should there be specific published guidelines for use of Twitter or Facebook?
8. What should the guidelines cover?
9. How do you honestly feel when you notice a staff member on Twitter or Facebook at their desk?
10. Any other comment you’d like to make?
Here are the answers to the first 7 questions (they are the easy ones to summarise) and I’ll collate the answers to questions 8-10 tomorrow
1. Where do you work?
The profile of the 41 participants: they were overwhelming school teachers
education office - 3; school - 35; university - 2; other - 1
Question 2: Has the issue of accessing Twitter while at work ever been discussed?
No - 32; Yes - 9
Should I be surprised by this, or is Twitter still a pretty well kept secret, or perhaps people don’t really understand what it does?
Question 3: Has the issue of accessing FaceBook while at work ever been discussed?
No - 22; Yes - 19
Obviously the issue of FaceBook has had more media coverage, but even so it is surprising that there seems to have been no discussion about access in over 50% of workplaces. But then I am not sure that we have explicitly broached the subject here either. The idea of discussing access seems to infer that issues of when and under what circumstances should be covered.
Question 4: Can you get to twitter.com from a computer at work?
don’t know - 11; no - 8; yes - 22
Question 5: If you access Twitter at work do you use computer, mobile phone, iPod?
computer - 19; ipod touch - 1; mobile phone - 7
Question 6 Can you get to FaceBook.com at work?
don’t know - 1; no - 18; yes - 22
I was surprised by this. I had expected the level of banning to be higher. Perhaps it is for student access, but I didn’t ask that question.
Question 7: Should there be specific published guidelines for use of Twitter or Facebook?
no - 8; undecided - 10; yes - 23
So it seems the jury is still out on this.
Some people are pretty adamant they don’t need guidelines, others want to see what they might say.
Tomorrow I will summarise what people said about what the guidelines (if we did create some) would/should say. Update: that follow up post is here.
Interesting links that have arisen recently:
Technology in an Australian Classroom
UK TDA Facebook Group for teachers
Council of Europe - Internet Literacy Handbook
Ten Twitter Mythconceptions
Twitter Keeps on Growing - especially in Australia
Twitter Classroom
Should Teachers, Students, be digital friends?
3 Comments
Even if there are guideline to not use at work, people find a way. Where I work, we were told not to use facebook or other social networking sites. Employees do it anyways, even at the expense of customer service. I am sure these sites can be a useful tool, however, how many hours does one work? And is there time to do those networking sites on ones own time?
Angela has hit the nail right on the head. Do we or do we not consider social networking tools, in whatever guise, part of our professional life?
If the answer is no, then Angela makes a great point - why would employees spend work hours on an essentially private pastime? However, it seems from the responses to Kerrie’s questionnaire that there’s some indecision about that. Certainly, there’s early evidence to suggest that some social networking tools can provide valuable professional learning opportunities for educators, particularly those in isolated areas where alternative professional learning opportunities are scanty.
In the interests of “full disclosure”, I do need to indicate one personal bias - I just don’t get Twitter. I have read the advice about giving it time, but right at the moment, it’s not that much of a priority. My evidence is backed up by an interesting conversation with my 16 year old daughter on our way to school/work this morning. In response to a news report on ABC local radio (see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/10/2593997.htm), she replied, “Twitter is total crap!” When asked why, she replied that Twitterers don’t have conversations with people; they just post uninteresting things about themselves. “FaceBook is much better; there’s lots of interesting things to do there”.
If there is value in using social networking tools for professional purposes, then it would not be unreasonable to spend one’s work hours, rather than one’s leisure hours, in using them. However, we will never resolve the high number of “undecided” responses from Kerrie’s survey, when decisions are made to universally block teachers from accessing these places across whole education workplaces and systems.
As my partner frequently asks in relation to heavy-handed web filtering policies, “What are they afraid of?”
“….As my partner frequently asks in relation to heavy-handed web filtering policies, “What are they afraid of?”….
They have lots to lose. In time “they” will see that they have much to gain.
The stream-constancy of open conversation is rapidly bringing about time-shifts in output expediency.
Take for instance #aupov09
How would you otherwise know of what occured where and when from any manner of walks of life and opinions on where waerable human computing is heading to ?
As Dr. MG Michael coined today…..what ethics are these ‘open’ or uber-surveillance modes having on our professional psyche and / or indeed perhaps the answers to our questions are simply answered by manner of active participation.
Looking forward to your inquiry :)
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[…] In the mini survey that I ran about Twitter and Facebook, Question 7 asked “Should there be specific published guidelines for use of Twitter or Facebook?” no - 8; undecided - 10; yes - 23. So it seems the jury is still out on this. Some people are pretty adamant they don’t need guidelines, others want to see what they might say. See my earlier posting for the background to all this. Question 8 gave people a chance to comment on their responses in Question 7. There were a lot of interesting responses, so I’m going to try to summarise them here. […]
[…] As posted to EDNA today - link here […]
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