Published by Anastasia Goodstein, Totally Wired (the blog) is a resource for parents, aunts, uncles, teachers, librarians youth workers or any adult trying to decode what teens are doing online and with technology. 
No Teacher Left Behind
This past week I read a blog post about teacher's unions in Ohio asking teachers not to participate in social networking because they did not want them fraternizing with students online. This, coupled with criticism of the recent National School Boards Association report (L.A. Times, reg. required) on social networking from The Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood, makes me want to say, "Stop the insanity." You can read my post when the report came out here. Not that I support commercialism in schools -- I absolutely do not. In fact I encourage parents and teachers to help teens become marketing literate and critical of the ad messages that appear on these sites. But I don't think that report was pushing an openness to social media in schools as a way to welcome brands into the classroom. If anything it was simply countering the onslaught of negative media coverage and well-meaning internet safety lectures that have teachers and parents running for the hills (and blocking everything) while teens and tweens continue to run to the "Virtual Hills."
If teachers are not encouraged to use social networking sites both personally and discuss social networking in class, they will be completely left behind. Students will also continue to suffer from having no adults teaching them how to use these sites appropriately. I'm not talking about how to just be safe by not sharing your home address. I'm talking about ethics, information literacy and an ongoing discussion of the new and complex socialization happening online. Teachers and students don't have to use MySpace or Facebook at school - although I strongly believe they should be accessible in all public libraries. I also think teachers need to be able to selectively unblock MySpace, YouTube and any other site that may have something educational to share with the class - A song on MySpace, a video on YouTube, etc.
If teachers want to use social networking educationally, they could research "white label" social networks that can be customized for use at school and that would be limited to students in a particular class. If they are interested in blogging they could check out companies like Gaggle that offer solutions for educators.
I also think teachers can create two profiles on sites like MySpace or Facebook -- one that is private, just for their personal friends and one that is a "teacher page," i.e. Mrs. Doe's Math Class profile, where she can post info for her students. You just need to warn the students that if they become friends with your teacher page, and you see something in one of their profiles that's inappropriate (i.e. drinking, drug use, etc.), you have to report it. Let's stop reacting and begin engaging with students around the tools that are transforming the way we all communicate.
Comments
As a young teacher who had Facebook before it was even available to my high school students, this was definitely an issue I dealt with. While my personal profile wasn't questionable, my friends didn't always use the same digression in posting on my wall.
I made the decision to decline invitations from all of my students until after they graduated. During my first year of teaching Facebook came out with the limited profile feature, but since I'd already announced I would decline invites until post-graduation, I didn't want to change the rules.
Now, I have new comments and messages almost daily from my former students and I'm excited to be able to keep up with them through Facebook and reach out to them during their college experience. I do think this is a really important for teachers to consider these issues, particularly young ones transitioning from college life to professional life.
Posted by: Amy Strecker | November 20, 2007 01:33 PM
Hi Anastasia,
What a great post.
As one of the founders of www.imbee.com, we have the great distinction of being the only social network to offer a free school blogging and new media program. We had never intended imbee.com to be used for teaching purposes, but given that our network is ad free and that we have build in parental controls; teachers have started to use our network for school purposes. To date we have had only positive feedback. We also have excellent partnerships wit National Geographic, PBS, the Canadian Ski Council and others.
We are also speaking with well known �ed tech� advocates like David Warlick, Wesley Fryer and Steve Hargadon who are help by providing us with important feedback related to education and Web 2.0 technology.
Our belief is that social media can be a fantastic learning tool if managed correctly.
Cheers,
Tim D
Imbee.com
Industriouskid.com
Posted by: Tim | November 20, 2007 08:34 PM
Great post. I'm blocked left and right at my school. I posted a video question to the CNN/YouTube debate about this. I doubt it will be used but it did feel good to vent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNfgL2sJ6Q
Posted by: Dale Basler | November 21, 2007 08:14 PM
As a high school teacher, I say:
ROCK ON!!!!
I totally agree. Why does it seem that education is always on a crusade against relevance? Many teachers are afraid to use social networking for fear that (gasp) a student might know they have a life outside the classroom! As a Spanish teacher trying to incorporate Global Citizenship, my references to facebook, myspace, and the like are of great value in the classroom, if for no other reason, then certainly because they give me the credibility to reach my students.
Posted by: Crystal Corn | November 25, 2007 04:12 AM
Your post caught me a bit off guard. Not only do I have social networking accounts, my students frequently send me messages via them. I recently ran a parent night and introduced a few of these sites to parents and administrators. The were shocked by some of the things they saw. I told them that we don't want to get in the business of banning students from these sites, but rather educating them about the information they put on the Internet. One of our students actually had his cell phone number listed on his page. Our principal dialed it and left him a message to come see her the next morning at 9 AM. They had a conversation on why that might not be a wise decision. At first, some of our students were uncomfortable knowing our administration was looking at their pages, but I reminded them that it was THEIR decision to put so much of their life out there. Now they are making better choices and don't seem to care as much about us looking in. I think it is working out fine.
Posted by: Sherry Crofut | November 28, 2007 05:58 PM