In Germany teachers haer about the Internet or Social Network Sites, but they dont use it.
It’s sad.

I do not believe that �online spaces are frequently analogous to �real life� space.� Virtual communication and interaction through public, online networking sites spatially, aurally, and visually cannot be compared to the �in-town� interaction you write about. When you log into facebook, you do not see a student who is studying, eating, shopping, or walking; you see a student who may have studied, eaten, shopped, or walked in a two dimensional space, where people may tag and untag photos based on the way they seek to represent themselves. Just because you can prove that �nothing untoward happened,� this doesn�t mean that the two differing ways of interaction rest in analogous spaces.

I agree that teacher/student relationships in a non-professional/academic sphere is nice. I, too, have many teachers who I am still in contact with today via email or facebook. However, I argue that it�s important to make the distinction between two fundamentally different modes of communication for the purpose of procedure on what is appropriate in real-life spaces versus virtual spaces.

Re: Exception�one�s responsibility upon viewing inappropriate material

In many high schools in the United States today, when a teacher sees a student wearing a t-shirt with verbal obscenities, a general rule of thumb is to ask the student to change into more appropriate attire.

On facebook or myspace, how could you regulate this? When high school students post pictures or comments about drug or alcohol usage, and you, as the teacher and an online friend, see this, you have visually become a part of that information just as the teacher seeing a tshirt with verbal obscenities has. Therefore, you, as the figure of authority, are held responsible. If every student and every teacher is not modifying his/her privacy settings to be conducive to an academic environment, I believe the lines are too easily blurred between a friend/teacher relationship making it very difficult to discern when to be held accountable.

I, personally, am only facebook friends with teachers whose courses I have already completed. Similarly, with these teachers, I will eat lunch or grab a cup of coffee only when I am not an official student of theirs. I, as a student and a teacher, choose to do this voluntarily because I do not want my learning to be influenced by a personal relationship other than that of respect, and admiration for the professor. This is not to say that teachers do not learn from students. But, viewing myself as a scholar, as I think the professor does as well, he/she, likewise, respects and admires me as someone willing to learn, critically think, and bring new perspectives to an academic body. I understand that not everyone takes this approach to learning, but it cannot be disputed that the role of the teacher and the student is made very clear in my situation, thus, leaving no question as to the meaning of �friends� as opposed to �friendly�.

If I see a current professor on campus or in an alternate public arena, however, neither of us are afraid to say hello or make small talk (unless I am doing poorly in the class, of course). We are friendly. I think it�s a slippery slope to assume that one limitation on interaction would lead to absolute paranoia of dismissal.

Yet, I do believe my relationships with my former teachers have been strengthened through the usage of facebook. Educator-student relationships, by any means, should be strengthened fervently. Yet, I found it necessary to make the distinction between these two spaces in order to exhibit some clarity on the new teacher-student relationship in light of a new communication medium.

I do not believe that �online spaces are frequently analogous to �real life� space.� Virtual communication and interaction through public, online networking sites spatially, aurally, and visually cannot be compared to the �in-town� interaction you write about. When you log into facebook, you do not see a student who is studying, eating, shopping, or walking; you see a student who may have studied, eaten, shopped, or walked in a two dimensional space, where people may tag and untag photos based on the way they seek to represent themselves. Just because you can prove that �nothing untoward happened,� this doesn�t mean that the two differing ways of interaction rest in analogous spaces.

I agree that teacher/student relationships in a non-professional/academic sphere is nice. I, too, have many teachers who I am still in contact with today via email or facebook. However, I argue that it�s important to make the distinction between two fundamentally different modes of communication for the purpose of procedure on what is appropriate in real-life spaces versus virtual spaces.

Re: Exception�one�s responsibility upon viewing inappropriate material

In many high schools in the United States today, when a teacher sees a student wearing a t-shirt with verbal obscenities, a general rule of thumb is to ask the student to change into more appropriate attire.

On facebook or myspace, how could you regulate this? When high school students post pictures or comments about drug or alcohol usage, and you, as the teacher and an online friend, see this, you have visually become a part of that information just as the teacher seeing a tshirt with verbal obscenities has. Therefore, you, as the figure of authority, are held responsible. If every student and every teacher is not modifying his/her privacy settings to be conducive to an academic environment, I believe the lines are too easily blurred between a friend/teacher relationship making it very difficult to discern when to be held accountable.

I, personally, am only facebook friends with teachers whose courses I have already completed. Similarly, with these teachers, I will eat lunch or grab a cup of coffee only when I am not an official student of theirs. I, as a student and a teacher, choose to do this voluntarily because I do not want my learning to be influenced by a personal relationship other than that of respect, and admiration for the professor. This is not to say that teachers do not learn from students. But, viewing myself as a scholar, as I think the professor does as well, he/she, likewise, respects and admires me as someone willing to learn, critically think, and bring new perspectives to an academic body. I understand that not everyone takes this approach to learning, but it cannot be disputed that the role of the teacher and the student is made very clear in my situation, thus, leaving no question as to the meaning of �friends� as opposed to �friendly�.

If I see a current professor on campus or in an alternate public arena, however, neither of us are afraid to say hello or make small talk (unless I am doing poorly in the class, of course). We are friendly. I think it�s a slippery slope to assume that one limitation on interaction would lead to absolute paranoia of dismissal.

Yet, I do believe my relationships with my former teachers have been strengthened through the usage of facebook. Educator-student relationships, by any means, should be strengthened fervently. Yet, I found it necessary to make the distinction between these two spaces in order to exhibit some clarity on the new teacher-student relationship in light of a new communication medium.

I’m teaching at what is described as an inner city school. I open my classroom/lab at 6:45 AM and it fills up with students till they leave. On Tuesday, the Go club and iClub stay till 4:45. My professional persona is modeled on the ones I learned from those worthy progenitors, not that I am particularly bright, but that it extends throughout a carefully limited persona that can be contacted through IM clients, blog, Moodle, FaceBook, and the occasional email for those who enjoy antique modalities. Google email and collaboration tools are mandatory in class. Not because we can’t do it with another application but because we need to act as evangelists with technology at our institution.

I understand that my students have multiple personas and they understand that I do too. Online we meet in the middle, the same way we do at school. We don’t go to inappropriate places online or otherwise.

Maybe one of the problems is that some schools can’t judge what is safe and what isn’t. [ Anecdote: A district (we are one of the huge ones) committee met to "help" me design a student portal some years ago. The library representative needed reassurance the educational games for k-6 kids wouldn't have gateways to porn sites. She had "seen it happen." ARGH ] Thank goodness portals are dead.

FaceBook is seen as a private space by some schools/districts. Personally, I think it’s nowhere even close to private. Of course some people treat it as if it were, but that’s dangerous. Students can friend me there but I am essentially passive on FaceBook.

My advantage is that my curriculum allows me to help students shape their social behaviour on the Internet, helping them become aware that it consists of a vast number of social groups and that they can control the experience.

Teenager’s Agora is now predominantly online.

If Socrates was alive today, where would he sit and would he still be charged as “corruptor of youth”?

Some years back I occasionally listebed to a popular talk radio show hosted by Dr. Dean Edell. On one memorable occasion he had gotten on the subject of “good samaritan” incidents – where a doctor would stop by the side of the road and give assistance to an accident victim – and perhaps get sued for their trouble. Dr. Dean was emphasizing the pitfalls of being a good samaritan, and basically saying that doctors should no longer be expected to do this. Near the end of the show he received a call from a retired physician who appeared to be a regular caller – identified only as “Doc”. And Doc said something like “I can’t remember how many times I’ve stopped by the road to assist an accident victim…”. And Dr, Dean said something like, “It’s sad, but that world is gone”.

Needless to say I was and remain both saddened and outraged.

Fast forward to the issue at hand. Does anybody but me see it as the same issue?

The commenter who told of being trained to “let them bleed” was at least taught by those who had the perverse virtue of being honest in their outlook. But the plethora of rules, restrictions and formalities around teacher/student contact on a human to human basis is a less forthright way of saying the very same thing. Let them bleed!

May I suggest that rather than being a trend to which one must adapt this deserves to be seen as a pressing and urgent problem to be solved, a dysfunction to be corrected?

When I was a high school student in a small midwestern town during the early sixties there was a young, hip, socialist band director (Mr. Dolan) who would meet 3 or 4 of us kids after school at the local burger joint for snacks and conversation. None of us were “at risk” (well, looking back, maybe I was – but neither I nor those around me recognized it). It was informal intellectually challenging conversation and nobody thought anything bad about it.

Am I to be told, like Doc, that such a world is gone forever? In the words of Joe Hill – “Don’t Mourn – organize!”

Just a thought,
-Steve

What do you think is the best advice for other teachers when it comes to interacting with students on social network sites?

This is a challenging question and I think a reasonable answer is with ‘high standards’

Schools in Ireland, where I teach at secondary level (high-school), have some way to go in terms of online communicative activity between students and teachers.

That said, the school I teach in, has have rolled out out a collaborative online learning environment (Moodle) and interaction on that is governed by our school’s Acceptable Usage Policy. This is a sensible policy and not restrictive as such.

By and large all posts are visible to your class so there is an amount of ‘self-moderation’.

In terms of email, students are not hugely into emailing teacher, except when they want something – and thats fine by me – I always ask them to address me by name and they expect the same from me – we keep the level of language use reasonably formal and very occasionally address issues in class raised by an email (with student’s permission).

In terms of social networking sites this is the student’s territory – they don’t seem to want teachers in their space (BEBO is the favourite here) – I ‘threaten occasionally to ‘invade’ their space and they are aghast at that!

(by the way we put huge emphasis here, on keeping privacy settings as ‘private’).

I have been invited a number of times as a ‘friend’ to follow a student – I generally decline (why? I now ask myself)- as students have other ways of contacting me online – a few do follow me on twitter and I follow one or two also -

The important point of this debate, is that teachers are interested, as they are engaged with their students – perhaps the word ‘friend’ is not the correct one in this context but certainly the act of friendship is what is required.

In general I find that students like that you as a teacher, are digitally aware and I find that they approach me personally (not online) when THEY have a problem on their social-networking sites – it seems there are few enough adults to help / advise when they have issue online – they are relieved that someone is there….