WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS SCHOOL POLICY? Teachers will be suspended if they will use social networking sites in education.

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Permalink Reply by Megan Cohan on November 16, 2010 at 8:05pm

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. I know that there are inappropriate times to use social networking sites in school, but it is nothing for teachers to be fired over. Teachers should be given guidelines to adhere to concerning social networking, however, I don't believe it should be completely banned.

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Permalink Reply by Christian Thaler on November 17, 2010 at 1:41pm

Besides a threat like this being quite exhibiting, what were the reasons given?

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Permalink Reply by Carolyn Mahan on November 18, 2010 at 8:31am

I do not agree with this at all. I feel that social networking should be used in the classroom in order to demonstrate the correct ways to use a social networking website. A lot of kids do not realize all of the benefits social networking has or all of the options it provides. I am a student at Illinois State University. For one of my classes, we were assigned to specifically make a professional network, which is how I came to classroom 2.0. I think that this project has been extremely helpful and because of these social networks I have been able to learn more than just sitting in the classroom.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Hyson on November 18, 2010 at 8:52am

I assume this is a religious (Christian?) institution... I have experience with this type of censorship myself, having gone K-12 in a Christian school, and 4 years at a Christian college. I understand that in that environment, especially in K-12, the school needs to cater to the conservative majority. The school that I grew up in, also the school my kids attend, had/has plenty of obtuse policies that I, being much more liberal than most, find excessive. In this case, the logic of banning Facebook comes from a flawed idea that social networks are innately dangerous. Like I mentioned earlier, I fall to the left of center compared to most religious folk, but I'm not sure how Christians can be "In the world, but not of the world" when they refuse to be "in the world."

I'd point out to the leadership that, when used properly, Facebook is as safe or safer than using basic email. I'd also conduct a survey of how many kids already have FB accounts. My bet is most.

In my district, social networks are blocked, so there's no way to use them in the classroom anyway, but the reason given for blocking them was that the students waste too much time and bandwidth.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Graham on November 19, 2010 at 9:37am

Chester,

Have a read of this...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/teachers_friending_spree_JVfEO8T...

But then check out one of more useful comments:


•InnovativeEdu

10/18/2010 7:45 PM

The article, "Facebook Does Not Get Teachers Fired - Inappropriate Behavior Does" on The Innovative Educator Blog conveys my feelings on this issue. Students need responsible, respectable adults in their online and offline worlds. Just as we do not ban kids from going to church because of misguided priests, we should NOT ban/discourage student/teacher communication in any forum because of misguided teachers. Doing so, actually has the reverse affect. When responsible adults are absent from students online or face-to-face worlds, it compromises their safety and preparedness for the world. Instead we must teach students not only how to be safe but also empower them to learn, grow, and globally connect in face-to-face or online environments.

•Report Abuse

JMWinPR



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/teachers_friending_spree_JVfEO8T...

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Permalink Reply by Pablo Benvenuto on November 22, 2010 at 11:30pm

Well, security should be a consideration when using social tools and there is always a diffcult balance between security and privacy and collaboration. My partners and I have developed a new community for teachers and students called StudyBuddyCampus. It is free and it represents our vision of the future for the use of technology in the classroom. Our goal is to revolutionize the delivery of education by combining an interactive game like experience with the latest educational content. We have several teachers and students testing our Beta site at http://www.studybuddycampus.com, and we are constantly releasing new features. Everyday, our design considerations are challenged by the natural conflict between security and the openness that collaboration requires. Anyway, I thought you might be interesting in taking a look, and if you have the time, we would love to receive feedback from people with your kind of experience.

Best Regards.

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Permalink Reply by crystal v on November 23, 2010 at 12:33pm

geez! This really does sound ridiculous. I would understand if it was a site that has nothing to do what you are about to teach like facebook or etc. They provide teachers with technology and now they are demanding crazy rules, whats next? They are going to start monitoring every teacher's computer. I think that among the teachers there at your school should try and petition this.

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Permalink Reply by Louise Rice on November 26, 2010 at 9:40am

While MySpace and Facebook may not be appropriate tools to use in the educational setting, there are other social networking tools that permit teacher direction, monitoring, and control. Wikispaces, Blogger, Ning or Edmodo to name a few. If you visit these sites' main pages, you'll find links to communities and school sites to use in your presentation.

I'm guessing an administrative decision such as this is based on lack of understanding. You could probably link to Classroom 2.0 for starters to illustrate educators networking.

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Permalink Reply by Serge Agroskin on November 26, 2010 at 5:33pm

I agree with the policy on one thing, Facebook is not the right tool for use in class for many reasons. Social networking as a whole though can be a huge benefit to education. The last generation of kids doesn't even use email, they only communicate by IM or messages on Facebook. So it's important to allow them the option to use the same type of tools in the classroom.

We solved our issue of needing an education focused social networking site for school use by creating our own, with collaboration of faculty, professors, and students. I'm the developer of the project and would love to see if I can help in any way. Right now we are testing it at City University of NY schools (500,000 students), but would be happy to include more schools if there's enough interest.

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Permalink Reply by Brian on November 27, 2010 at 10:06am

Obviously these are folks still back in the 1900's. Ridiculous, I say!

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Kaspar on November 28, 2010 at 2:30pm

I do feel that Facebook or Myspace may not be the best to use for educational purposes, but there are other social networking sites available that are great to use for education, such as blogger, wikispace, pbworks, etc. Social networking sites, when used appropriately can have a positive effect on our students. Students have a better interest in learning the material when it used in a way they are famililar with, such as the computer or other technologies. Someone mentioned that social networking sites do not get teachers fired, but poor behavior gets them fired. I agree with that. As teachers, we do need to educate our students on how to appropriately use the Internet so to eliminate or at least minimize the chance for bad behavior on one of these sites. By taking advantage of a "teaching opportunity", we also have the chance to teach them appropriate Internet use for when they outside the classroom.

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Permalink Reply by carl smith on November 30, 2010 at 3:57pm

i think this is a ridiculous policy. educators with downtime (though usually limited) should be able to network with their peers and others as long as it is not at the expense of the students.

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