Social networks can blur the boundaries between student and pupil and present serious problems in the classroom
FOR MOST PEOPLE of a certain age, Facebook is one of life’s necessities. It’s how you organise a night out when people are working to different schedules. It’s an easy way to send good wishes and see the photos if you missed a birthday party or a wedding and it’s great for keeping in touch with recent emigrants to Canada and Oz.
According to figures published earlier this year, 44 per cent of the Irish population have a Facebook account. Add Twitter, Linkedin and Google Plus into the mix and it’s clear that networking and socialising have changed for good.
But how does a teacher manage? With so many of your photographs and details going up online, there is an increased risk that a student or a parent will see something they don’t like. There have already been problems in Britain. Six primary school teachers made headlines last May when one posted photographs of a rowdy hen party on the social networking site, without making the photographs private. A parent came across them, printed them out and distributed them in the neighbourhood with a letter that included the question: “What does this tell you about this school and how it is being run?“
It’s an issue of which teachers have become increasingly aware. “I use Facebook, but I go by my married name so students and their parents are less likely to find me,” said one teacher.
“I wouldn’t go near Facebook if you paid me,” said another. “I like other sites, and I see potential in Google Plus, but Facebook is too risky. They keep changing the privacy settings. It’s not as easy to control as other sites.”
Younger teachers have to think professionally about a site that has been a part of their lives for years. A simple Google search of a job applicant’s name will often yield a Facebook result. Even with a high privacy setting, teachers and potential teachers need to think about their profile picture. The one of you looking fabulous, sipping on a margharita in Ibiza probably isn’t the right choice.
“We even warn them about e-mail addresses,” said one source who gives talks to students about such things.
“Hotchick@gmail.com might seem like a great idea but try putting it on a CV.”
Then there are boundaries to think about. Most teachers seem to agree that accepting friend requests from students is not a good idea, but then discussions on the topic on popular web forum, boards.ie, yield some students and teachers who have blurred that boundary.
“Nearly everyone in my class is friends with the teacher. She’s great crack!” said one student. While a teacher wrote, “present students seek friendship on Facebook. At first I resisted, but then I began to intervene in Facebook bullying encountered by my students. Really Facebook is not much different to Bebo. Bebo used to ask for teachers to be moderators for students from their schools.”
This view appears to be a minority one, however, with most teachers applying strict boundaries to their online relationships. The Teaching Council issued a new draft for a revised Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers last week and it contained a requirement for teachers to communicate appropriately with students, colleagues, parents, school management and others via electronic media including e-mail, texting and social networking sites. The guidelines are general – some schools may feel it necessary to introduce specific rules, others may not.
Some teachers are using these sites as education tools. Fintan O’Mahony teaches English and history in Scoil Mhuire Carrick on Suir. He uses Twitter both on a personal level and to enhance his teaching. He has set up a Twitter account for his history classes and one for his English classes.
“It has completely changed teaching for me,” he says. “Tomorrow, my history class will be tweeting headlines from newspapers that would have been published during the war of independence. There are rules, everything has to be accurate and spelled correctly, if it’s not, I delete it and they all go mad. It’s so engaging, they seem to retain three times as much as they ordinarily would – particularly the girls who are not usually into history.”
O’Mahony is something of a trailblazer in this respect but he’s not alone. Increasing numbers of teachers are beginning to use Twitter, Google Plus and even Facebook as teaching tools. It’s a small, but growing number
The consensus seems to be that when it comes to social networking, teachers need to apply a healthy dose of common sense to the process, ensuring privacy is high and exercising good judgment in terms of communication and relationships on these sites.
Teachers aren’t the only ones who can get caught out, however. “It can work both ways,” said one former teacher.
“When I was teaching, one of my students was off sick, but then she tweeted about her day spent shopping in town. That was quite funny I thought.”
'We all have our profiles set to private'
ONE ROSCOMMON TEACHER, who didn’t want to be named, described her experience with Facebook:
“Many teachers in my school are young so there’d be a high proportion of people on Facebook. We all have our profiles set to private. You don’t want students searching for you. I tell them that I don’t have a Facebook account.
“Of course, some will search and find you. They’ll send a friend request if they see your name. I’d often have a message in the corner of my screen saying something like, ‘You have been poked by John Murphy’. I ignore it and it sort of loses its novelty for them.
“There’s a very definite difference in how students engage with Facebook. I wouldn’t give it a second thought if someone didn’t accept a friend request from me, but students seem to have 492 friends on Facebook. They accept everyone because it makes them look popular but they also take it to heart if they aren’t accepted.
“If I ignore a friend request, the student will often come up to me and ask me why I didn’t accept. When I explain that I can’t, their attitude is: ‘But do you not like me?’
“I have to explain that it’s just not appropriate. I’d rather a student have their feelings hurt than a parent coming in to me wondering why I’m friends with their 14 year-old online.
“Personally, there is an element of risk to it. A lot of my friends are teachers so they have more sense than to be putting up photos of nights out or tagging me in things. I certainly don’t put anything like that up myself.”
“That said, you can be as careful as you like and you’ll still get caught out. I had a student who came in to me and said, ’Miss I thought you said you weren’t on Facebook.’
“It turned out that he’d seen my page because I’m friendly with his older brother and he saw my page on his brother’s account. Now because I’m careful about what I put up it’s not a big deal but it’s still a bit invasive.
The postives and negatives
A THIRD-YEAR B.ED STUDENT from Donegal talks about his experience with social media:
“I usually change my Facebook name during teaching practice. Last year I used the Irish version of my name but I still got a few adds from students. They were in second class which I don’t think is officially old enough to be on Facebook but there you have it.
“They’re definitely conscious of it in the college. We’ve had lectures about maintaining your privacy on Facebook and being careful about what people can view. I mean, if students saw a picture of a night out and printed it out or showed it to their parents, it could be serious.
“You have to be aware of it when applying for jobs. I know of a case where someone went into an interview and the interviewer had printed off a picture of their Facebook page.
“They were told that their profile picture was inappropriate. Jobs are few and far between so that’s how petty employers are going to be now.
“I personally think that sort of thing is probably fair enough. You have to be aware of your status and you can’t be having personal things on show. You have to be careful though. Facebook can change privacy settings without letting you know. It happened last year and I knew nothing about it until someone mentioned to me that I should check it.
“ It’d be a bit of a nightmare if a student came across something and printed it out. As a teacher, certain standards are expected and you have to be careful . . .
“That said, everyone in my year is on Facebook. The benefits far outweigh the risks. It’s handy too.
“We have a page where people in the year can swap schemes and lesson plans. It’s good in that way.
“Privacy-wise, there are ways of blocking people off completely. You just have to be sensible about all of this.“
'I never accept friend requests'
HUMPHREY JONES is a science teacher in St Columba’s College in Dublin. He is co-founder of the popular science website and blog, frogblog.ie.
“I’m very, very careful in terms of controlling my privacy settings. I’d say I’ve been on Facebook for about eight years now. I’m on Twitter, Google Plus and Linkedin as well. I’ve always been very aware of the privacy issues as a teacher. There are child protection and safety issues as well.
“As far as I’m concerned, Facebook is for my own social scene. It’s my domain. It’s not for students. I get friend requests from students all the time. I never accept but I’ll always send a message explaining why – that it’s not appropriate. It’s only fair to do that. I don’t want to damage the student-teacher relationship over it.
“I’m the same with Twitter. I have a personal Twitter account and one for my science blog. If a student starts following my personal account, I ask them to stop and to follow the blog instead. If they don’t stop following me I just block them. To be fair, students do respond to boundaries. If you explain that one account is personal, they understand.
“It’s just a matter of boundaries. I use my personal Twitter account to connect with other teachers and science professionals. There’s a really dynamic Tweecher (that’s what they’re called apparently!) community out there and there’s a great culture of sharing resources and ideas, answering each other’s questions online.
“The Frog Blog is just a way of enthusing students about science beyond the curriculum. We have a Facebook page for it which is beginning to take off and a Twitter account which students follow.
“Twitter has been fantastic, both for the Frog Blog and for me as a teacher. I’ve had some good opportunities professionally out of it all. I’ve had a lot of offers, asking me to write articles or to speak at conferences. It’s a great way to connect with the science community beyond teaching as well.
“Twitter is more of an adult domain though. The Facebook page for the Frog Blog is gathering a good following among students. I suppose particularly in a boarding school, Facebook is such an important way for students to connect with friends. If you can manage to get just a minute or two of their time online it’s an achievement.
“It’s great as a teacher to have someone in a class say, ‘Sir I saw that article you posted, it was really interesting.’ That’s what you want to hear.”
Blog: frogblog.ie
Facebook: facebook.com/thefrogblog,
Twitter: @thefrogblog
Tips for teachers
The ASTI doesn’t have any official guidelines but these tips were published in the ASTI magazine Astir recently:
* Maintain professional standards and use a teacher’s voice when communicating with students via e-mail.
* Don’t permit images of yourself to be taken and posted on any site without appropriate privacy safeguards.
* Don’t post criticism of colleagues or students on social networking sites.
* Don’t share confidential information about students or colleagues on social networking sites.
* Don’t post confidential images or information about yourself on social networking sites.
