The title of this post over at The Thinking Stick initially took me by surprise. Why on earth would I want to make my students my "fan" on facebook? I'm not actually sure I even like the idea of "friending" my students on facebook, even though my facebook page is relatively free of private information (I hope).
However, Jeff Utecht does make a good point about setting an example of how to keep your private life private and still be connected to people you interact with on a daily basis. It might be nice for a student to leave me a message on my facebook fan page, because that is the way they they know how to connect with people.
On the other hand, if I see these kids every day, there really shouldn't be that much of a need to make contact through other means. I'm going to use face-to-face time the most. Phone and email next. Those three ways should cover all my communication bases, so anything else is just extra.
Of course, I'm speaking from an elementary teacher's point of view. When you have high school kids who take your two hour block scheduled class twice a week, it probably would help to have other means of communication. I would just make sure that saying things over a fan page on facebook holds as much seriousness as speaking in person. If I tell a student that an assignment is due on that day over facebook, it is due on that day. No room for interpretation.
Hm, now I want to take another look at how exposed I am online. Time to clean up my online presence by unsubscribing/deleting accounts, no?
No comments:
Post a Comment