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Teachers & Social Media: Facebook, Twitter

Calgary schools ask: Should teachers use Facebook, Twitter?

By Sarah Mcginnis, Calgary HeraldDecember 6, 2010

The battle to remain relevant to tech-savvy teens is raising questions about whether teachers should be using popular social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter to reach their students.

While one tech analyst said teachers shouldn't shun social media, Calgary school boards and the Alberta Teachers' association remain wary of any situation that could see teachers communicate with students using these sites.
The "seductiveness" of social media encourages interactions on a personal level that wouldn't take place in the classroom, said Robert Bisson, co-ordinator of member services for the Alberta Teachers' Association.
"It's a question of maintaining an appropriate teacher-student relationship and respecting those boundaries," said Bisson, who advises against teachers using social media to interact with students.
Facebook is for friends, family, your peer group, he said.
"Students rightfully do not belong as part of that group," Bisson added.
But teachers shouldn't shun all social media if they want to remain relevant to their students, said technology columnist Steve Dotto, who was previously host of the Dotto Tech TV show.
"Teachers and all adults have to be part of the social networking world and understand it," said Dotto, who recently spoke about social media at the B.C. College of Teachers conference. "In my mind the Internet is a place and not a thing, and our kids spend a lot of time in that place.
"If the adults in society aren't there, we can't help our kids through it."
This is not to say Dotto is advocating that teachers should friend their students on Facebook or that students should be able to see personal photos of their teacher's lives outside school.
Nor is he ignoring a handful of cases in Canada where inappropriate relationships between students and teachers took place using sites such as Facebook.
But if local school policies permit, teachers could establish a professional profile on Facebook to communicate with students that could also be open to school administrators to monitor, Dotto said.
"What we don't understand tends to scare us more. But we can't blame the technology for individuals bad decisions," Dotto said.
Students themselves seem to be mixed on whether they'd like to be interacting with their teachers on Facebook.
Many didn't like the idea of their teachers "spying" on them online.
"I'd be completely and utterly creeped out," said Anissa Sherrer, 15.
But her friend Doreen Zepeda, also 15, isn't against it.
"All of my teachers are awesome so I wouldn't really mind," said Zepeda.
The issue of whether teachers should be Facebook "friends" with their students does raise some ethical questions, said Calgary Board of Education chairwoman Pat Cochrane.
"The teacher is also an authority figure in their lives, and while it's great to have a relationship, should (teachers and students) be pals," asked Cochrane.
The CBE is examining social networking as part of its technology advisory committee which regularly reviews how technology should be used in and out of the classroom, said CBE spokesman Ted Flitton.
The Calgary Catholic School District also doesn't have a formal social networking policy for teachers in place, but a district committee is looking at it, said separate board spokeswoman Janet Corsten.
In the meantime, both school boards do discuss the proper use of technology with teachers and students at the school level.
At the University of Lethbridge's education faculty, future teachers are encouraged to adapt technology for educational purposes when they reach their own classrooms, said associate professor of education Marlo Steed.
But they are also warned about the professional perils of their online personas.
"We tell them ... the first thing your students are going to do is look you up on Facebook. How are you represented on Facebook?" said Steed. "There have been cases where people have lost their job over this."
Instead of using public sites, Steed said he'd rather see teachers stick to district web pages - such as internal blogs or school chat forums - to reach students outside class.
"Those sites are controlled," he said. "You can limit who and what goes on there.
"But once you get out to Facebook and Twitter, suddenly your landscape becomes the entire world. . . . You have to be careful," added Steed.

With files from Deborah Tetley, Calgary Herald
smcginnis@calgaryherald.com

BusinessEnglish2020

This blog serves several purposes. One of them is to share part of the material compiled for my classes of Business English at the university and at some well-known companies. Another reason is to use it as some kind of reference site/resource for those who may be looking for business related material for their personal use or for their classes as students or teachers.(To be continued...)