Each day I become more and more open to technology. I have several friends that are active in the teaching field. A couple of those friends have accepted friend requests from students on facebook, which I find completely inappropriate. However, I think a good solution would be signing up for a professional facebook account with another email address, while keeping your personal account hidden. Facebook offers many privacy options, one even allows you to only be searchable by a friend of a friend. This drastically cuts the chance of a student finding your page. Facebook suggests that if you are viewable "You can also model safe behavior by being careful about what you share online". This is a great point, however the social aspect of this makes it difficult to control what your friends post. let's face it, most of cannot say that each person on their friends list would use the same judgement about the appropriateness of some material!
A classroom facebook account could be a very useful tool, especially for keeping contact with parents. Also for parents, it will allow for better parental networking. Everyone will have a better opportunity to stay in the loop.
In the online article, A case for social media in schools, written by Sarah Kessler she mentioned another benefit, this time out of the classroom. The social aspect helps to better prepare you for the workplace. So much school work has been focused on individual, independent work, but when you get out into the real world you are expected to work in teams to get work done. the interactive nature of social networking may help with this transition.
I agree that teachers accepting friend requests from their students is very inappropriate. One thing that I took form A case for social media in schools, was also how school work is focused on the individual and in the workplace there are many times where one is expected to work in groups and interact with their co-workers. By having social media in the classroom everyday it would allow the students to be more prepared for the workforce and know how to work with others, instead of always working by themselves.
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ReplyDeleteI agree about having two accounts-- a strictly educational one, and a personal one (that is very private). I would like to hear about some additional ideas of how facebook could be used (other than communication). It has many educational implications.
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