HuffingtonPost is on a role for me today!
I am just finishing up reading an article that discusses CONCERNS for Facebook. The educational highlight is the over-exposure of students' and teachers' lives which is a safety and integrity concern, as well as the ever-present issue of bullying.
We have discussed the amazing features of Facebook as a learning tool but I think we need to take a hard look at the dark side of Facebook - or any social media before we launch head first into integrating it into our lesson plans.
Facebook is youthful but is has serious consequences when poor judgment is used. We have even seen where adults make poor judgments and it has cost them careers, friends and family which makes me want to take a deep breath before I start using Facebook again.
If we use Facebook in our lessons we need to be emphatic that it is a tool not a chronological timeline of the students' lives. Privacy controls need to be read, understood and enforced as well as discussing the potential for bullying. Bullying becomes harder to control when the Internet is involved and I think that we need to discuss with our students cyber bullying before incidents happen, rather than realizing it is an important topic after an incident occurs.
Shelby,
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting that you posted this as my Teaching For Learning class was discussing this the other day. Our class was able to meet with the school Bullying Counselor. He spend about a half hour with my class discussing the steps he needs to take when investigating a "bullying" case. He mentioned that about 95% of the time, he is looking into issues that are caused by Facebook. I have to say I wasn't necessarily shocked by this. I don't know if I would bring Facebook into my class. I wouldn't want to be associated with any misunderstandings that might come with it.
Giuliana,
ReplyDeleteI agree, Facebook will definitely not be involved in my classroom, there are many other technological avenues that can be explored that are safer for all parties involved.
What's more interesting is how many employers have been requesting your facebook login information before hiring you. Blows my mind. Actually, I plan on using facebook for education... But I plan on making a separate academic account that is completely disconnected from my personal account. Some of the benefits of it are just too hard to ignore.
ReplyDelete