Using social media (such as Facebook, iChat, Skype, YouTube, etc.) in the classroom has many implications.  We urge the professional educator to always use good judgement and common sense.  Remember that our tasks as educators extends to all of our potential interactions with students ...  If you choose to interact with students in these media, we urge you to maintain a clear and distinct professional relationship.

In that spirit, we encourage teachers to utilize existing district resources (such as your classroom web page and email address as much as possible.  However, we also realize that the technological landscape is very dynamic -- thus these practical suggestions for other interactions that may occur.

Using Facebook Safely

Facebook has wonderful privacy controls that enable you to manage what anyone can see or cannot see. We are all social actors, but if as a teacher you meet childen in a non educational space - for example shopping - you don't become a different person even though that may be how your out-of-school college pals characterize you on the weekend. Neither would you invite children back home for a party. In the supermarket, meeting children, you remain simply as Ms. Smith, their teacher.

On-line too, you want to protect the line between your personal and professional life - to protect both yourself and them! If you follow some simple rules, this different identities can be managed as easily as they are in the supermarket:

Do:

• Build a separate teacher page for your "teacher" presence. Facebook does not let you have Mr or Miss Heppell, they will not allow the page to be accepted. In Juliette's school, staff use the subject as the firstname (example: History Smith) or missy/mister (example: Missy Heppell)

• Keep your teacher and personal page very separate

• Let students 'friend' you as your teacher self. When they ask to be your friend, send a standard reply first to ensure they understand exactly what this means:
  Example: "Thanks for asking to be my friend. Just wanted to remind you this is my teacher page and so the usual rules apply. I’ll make sure you don’t come up in my news feed (as I’m sure you don’t want me to see your conversations with your mates ;-)) so I’ll only see things that I am tagged in. I can’t facebook chat, but post on my wall and we can chat there :-) Let me know if this is ok with you, and as long as it is, I’d love to be your FB friend!")

• Post pictures of school/lessons/trips - even diagrams you put on the board (snap them with your phone and post them) - it reminds students that you are there, generates a pride in the school and reminds them that this is not a vaccuous space!

• Build groups for your classes - encourage them to ask about homework and help one another through the discussions and group wall. Identity and belonging are important parts of learning.

• Make sure your class groups are closed groups, so people have to request to join and see the group. It often helps manage the groups if you choose a couple of pupils to give admin responsibility to in the group (but make sure they are pupils who use Facebook regularly!)

• Join groups about the school - it's a great way to see what students are posting, or to manage the posts. Be aware that prospective teachers may well refer to these before applying for positions at the school!

• Post positive status updates, praise rich, regularly so that students feel rewarded.
  Example: Missy Heppell is really impressed with 9J, K, L & M today - their work during the enterprise day was totally brilliant! 9P, Q, R & S will have a lot to live up to!

• Use the status to keep pupils informed of last minute changes in school
  Example: School is closed today because of the snow!

• Play a couple of simple to run games. It can engage some students who might not engage in school - you’ll be amazed at the pupils positive response - just as schools trips like field courses change relationships positively, so do virtual out-of-school activities.

• Wish students happy birthday when Facebook reminds you (this is the one time when you can post on their wall!) - it helps them to see that you care!

Don’t:

• Don't FB chat - you can’t save it and therefore you are not protected against any accusations or inaccurate recollections.

• Don't ever 'friend' students yourself - not even as your "teacher" presence

• Don't message pupils (other than your initial friends message - or birthday wishes). If they message you, post something back on their wall. It's just not sensible private messaging pupils - keep everything public. (although you can message a whole group - for example your form class to say they are wonderful, or to say thank you - that can be very effective)

• Don't look at pupils' Facebook pictures (apart obviously from their profile picture) - and make it clear that you can't / won't ever do that. If you saw something inappropriate you would have to report it and the whole chemistry of the relationship would change - this is not a place for that kind of monitoring.

• Social networks in school are not places for criticisms. Remember that you are there as your "teacher" presence, with all that implies for leadership and morale.