Saturday, October 1, 2011

w6o

Social media is an extremely useful tool used to communicate and interact with others, whether it be friends, family, significant others, colleagues and to some even students? When friending others on Facebook, the protocol for who to accept, who to deny, and who to have on a limited profile can get a bit fuzzy at times.

The article, "Student Facebook requests: Accept of Decline?", Karla Pasos, a physical education elementary school teacher at the time, recounts when she began getting friend requests from students. At first she did not take any action in accepting or declining, instead she surveyed her fellow colleagues to get their advice on the matter. She found that most educators did not accept their students friend requests, however, the older the students got, the most willing the teachers were to allow their relationships with students to go cyber.

High school teachers were typically more likely to be friends with their students, especially when they were able to incorporate their social media outlets into their learning calender. For example, teachers would post supplemental references for further reading, remind students when projects/papers/assignments were due, and engage their students in online discussions. These are prime examples of how social media can aid the classroom even at a young age. However, in Karla's case, at an elementary school level especially in a physical education class, there are not many ways in which an educator can use social media as a learning tool. Which is exactly what prompted her to decline students' friend requests.

As someone who highly values their privacy, I do not think it is necessary or even appropriate for an educator to engage with their students via personal social media pages, regardless of the school level. That being said, of course there are exceptions such as connecting via LinkedIn. However, I think if a teacher wants to engage their students in a unique way that they can relate to, they should create "student friendly" user pages specifically restricted to classroom or appropriately relevant materials. Additionally, I do not think it is appropriate for the same boundaries to be crossed in regards to an employer/employee relationship as well.

The debate of these relationships becoming cyber are gaining attention of others as well when this summer Missouri Governor Jay Nixon signed a state-wide bill prohibiting the most teacher-student communication on social networking sites. The state becoming active in voicing their opinions makes a strong statement on what is and is not appropriate in the revolution of the education field as young students are becoming active users of social media and advanced technology in general.



http://mat.usc.edu/student-facebook-requests-accept-or-decline/