Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Teachers and Facebook/Myspace
Do you think teachers should have facebook or myspace? I know ive had these both for over 5 years and recently I have been seeing more teachers, both from my past and my present on these sites. Some of these teachers have no privacy restrictions on their pages and viewers are allowed to see much of their profile. For older students this may not be a proble, but for kids in middle school and even high school, wouldn't that be awkward? I still feel strange looking at my past teacher's profiles and seeing what they are up to, where they are working and living, and what is going on with their friends and family. Should teachers be this open with their life to past, present, and future students?
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5 comments:
I think you bring up a really interesting point. Even if the content of a teacher's facebook/myspace is appropriate, is it appropriate for students to know personal information about a teacher? Having access to this type of information can act to sort of blur the student/teacher relationship line. It is something that should be handled very carefully.
Katie,
This is such a touch situation and discussion to have with teachers in 2008. Most college students (if not all) have some form of social networking site.
Is it realistic or fair to ask them to completely delete this infornation? I am not sure.
I usually ask new teachers if they feel comfortbale showing their school principal their site... If not, delete it. ;)
Thanks for bringing up a terrific topic!
I think this is a really interesting point too. I have both - facebook and myspace - and I've been thinking about deleting them too. I try to make sure that I don't post anything inappropriate, but it's hard to prevent your friends from posting inappropriate things involving you - especially with facebook, where your friends can tag you in their pictures. Once I start interviewing for teaching positions, I will probably delete my profiles or at least increase my privacy settings. Dr. Luongo, thanks for the advice!
This is definitely a very interesting and difficult topic to figure out. I just recently joined Facebook, and I'm really enjoying it for the social networking purpose. However, I noticed that I've also started to receive friend requests from a number of people, who I don't know well at all. I was always very reluctant to join either MySpace or Facebook, since I tend to be a more private person and would rather have only my friends and relatives know what is going on in my life. Though I do have all my privacy settings on at the maximum level,and only my confirmed "friends" can see what's on my profile, I still worry that my image can be tainted later when I become a teacher, as I've noticed that I've been extremely open with a lot that is going on in my life on my page. I think that when I start interviewing for jobs, I may remove some of the people that I'm not so close with, just as a safeguard. Either that, or I might just remove some of the more inappropriate photos and comments.
This is a very real topic. When your students come up to you and mention that quote from your page you know its for real. It does raise the issue of privacy and professionalism. Students nowadays have access to many sites and pages. If they know your full name like many do it is nothing for them to find your profile in cyberspace.
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