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These come via the Blue Skunk Blog (Doug Johnson) -
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/8/7/guidelines-for-educators-using-social-networking-sites.html
Guidelines for Educators Using Social Networking Sites
August 2009 (DRAFT)
Social networks are rapidly growing in popularity and use by all ages in
society. The most popular social networks are web-based, commercial, and not
purposely designed for educational use. They include sites like Facebook,
MySpace, Bebo, and Xanga. For individuals, social networking sites provide
tremendous potential opportunities for staying in touch with friends and
family.
Other educational networking sites are also growing in use. These sites are
usually restricted to only certain users and not available to the general
public. These include resources such as Moodle, educational wikis, a
professional online communities such as the Classroom2.0 Ning, or district
adoptions of online applications such as Google Apps for Education.
As educators we have a professional image to uphold and how we conduct
ourselves online helps determine this image. As reported by the media, there
have been instances of educators demonstrating professional misconduct while
engaging in inappropriate dialogue about their schools and/or students or
posting pictures and videos of themselves engaged in inappropriate activity.
Some educators feel that being online shields them from having their personal
lives examined. But increasingly, how educators’ online identities are too
often public and can cause serious repercussions.
One of the hallmarks of social networks is the ability to “friend” others –
creating a group of others that share interests and personal news. The
district strongly discourages teachers from accepting invitations to friend
students within these social networking sites. When students gain access into
a teacher’s network of friends and acquaintances and are able to view personal
photos, the student-teacher dynamic is altered. Friending students provide
more information than one should share in an educational setting. It is
important to maintain a professional relationship with students to avoid
relationships that could cause bias in the classroom.
For the protection of your professional reputation, the district recommends
the following practices:
- Friends and friending
- Do not accept students as friends on personal social
networking sites. Decline any student-initiated friend requests.
- Do not initiate friendships with students
- Remember that people classified as “friends” have
the ability to download and share your information with others.
- If you wish to use networking protocols as a part of
the educational process, please work with your administrators and technology
staff to identify and use a restricted, school-endorsed networking
platforms.
Content
- Do not use commentary deemed to be defamatory,
obscene, proprietary, or libelous. Exercise caution with regards to
exaggeration, colorful language, guesswork, obscenity, copyrighted
materials, legal conclusions, and derogatory remarks or characterizations.
- Weigh whether a particular posting puts your
effectiveness as a teacher at risk.
- Post only what you want the world to see. Imagine your
students, their parents, your administrator, visiting your site. It is not
like posting something to your web site or blog and then realizing that a
story or photo should be taken down. On a social networking site, basically
once you post something it may be available, even after it is removed from
the site.
- Do not discuss students or coworkers or publicly
criticize school policies or personnel.
- Do not post images that include students.
Security
- Due to security risks, be cautious when installing the
external applications that work with the social networking site. Examples of
these sites are calendar programs and games.
- Run updated malware protection to avoid infections of
spyware and adware that social networking sites might place on your
computer.
- Be careful not to fall for phishing scams that arrive
via email or on your wall, providing a link for you to click, leading to a
fake login page.
- Visit your profile’s security and privacy settings. At
a minimum, educators should have all privacy settings set to “only friends”.
“Friends of friends” and “Networks and Friends” open your content to a large
group of unknown people. Your privacy and that of your family may be a risk.
People you do not know may be looking at you, your home, your kids, your
grandkids, - your lives!
Please stay informed and cautious in the use of all new
networking technologies.
Resources
Written by Jen Hegna, Information Systems Manager, Byron
(MN) Public Schools
Arp Social Network is CLOSED for
Students and Opened with Moderating for Public. See Required Settings:
http://www.arp.sprnet.org/Admin/Blog_Setup.htm
For questions please contact: Dr. Joy
Rousseau, joy@arpisd.org
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